Bridged: Raise the Sky
by hokkyokukou
Summary: In 2086, after receiving artificial eyes, Kuroko finds himself having visions about people he's never met. When two of these people, a violet-haired man with a redhead in tow, collapse on his doorstep, Kuroko is plunged into chaos as people important to him begin to disappear. With the hacker Momoi, a team of specialists, and his naive friends, Kuroko doesn't know if he can win.
1. I can see you

**1**

"Alright, I think that concludes the operation."

"Okay, great job, guys. Let's wake him up, do a run through the checklist."

"Alright. Recording starts now. Okay, Chiri, wake up. Begin filming."

"Still can't believe that Akashi company managed to make that robot—"

"Shut up, it's recording!"

"Ahem. September 15, 2087. Teikou Hospital, Institution XXX. Biomedical engineering squad. Leaders Kiyoshi Teppei, Hyuuga Junpei, Momoi Satsuki, Riko Aida. Surgeons Harasawa Katsunori, Imayoshi Shoichi, Sakurai Ryou. Patient #16847. Kuroko Tetsuya. Male. 18. 168 cm, 54 kg, BMI 19.2. Completely blinded due to eye injury and head trauma in 2086. Artificial eye implant, patient #11; patient #1 to have both eyes replaced with robotics. Commencing tests. Wake him up."

"Order received. In three… two… one. Consciousness restored. Kuroko Tetsuya? Can you hear me? Just nod if you can. Alright, great. Now, then, in a few moments, we're going to remove the binding around your eyes and activate the artificial eyes. It will take a few moments for them to calibrate, so keep them closed until we give you the signal. We don't want any information overload due to light. Alright, go ahead, Ryou."

"I-I'm sorry! I'll be taking off your bandages now, sorry!"

"Quit it with the sorrys, Sakurai, or I'll _make_ you sorry."

"Sorry!"

"Sheesh…"

"Alright, ready, Kuroko? It'll feel weird at first, but that's just the 'iris' opening and closing underneath your eyelids. Keep them closed, alright? Okay, Chiri, start the timer. Two minutes."

"Data is coming in. No problems detected so far."

"Great. Ryou, you're standing too close to the patient."

"Sorry! I'm really sorry!"

"Ah, jeez, next time I'll keep my mouth shut. OK, thirty seconds left. Chiri, connect to the computer. Project image received through the artificial eyes on the back wall. Ready, Kuroko? Alright, in a few seconds, open your eyes. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Okay."

The boy called Kuroko Tetsuya opened his eyes. It was as if paint had been sloshed over his entire vision. Whites, blacks, greys, blues, greens, reds. Suddenly, a world of color in a universe that had been black for so long. He felt his breath catch in his throat. Hotness pricked his eyes; he guessed he was crying.

"Looks like the images perceived by the eyes are alright. Oh, look, there I am. Hi~ Kuroko, can you see me?"

Kuroko lifted his eyes, which felt heavy and a little too cool and smooth around the edges.

"I can see you."

"Great! I'm Imayoshi, by the way. Now, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. What color are my gloves?"

"…Blue. Sky blue. It's… beautiful."

"Well that's the first time I've heard surgical gloves being called 'beautiful.' Moving on, here's a picture we usually use to test for colorblindness. Can you see anything in it?"

"The number 15."

"OK! Now, I want you to roll your eyes around as far as they'll go within your comfort zone… very good… the other way please. OK. Looks good. Chiri, turn the lights off."

Kuroko flinched at the sudden darkness. He didn't like this suffocating black. He wanted the light back again. He'd only gotten it just a few moments ago; why did they have to take it away so quickly? He wanted to see the plethora of colors, the art of light, life itself…

"Alright, I'm going to shine a light into your eyes. It might sting. If it gets too painful, just say something. Does it hurt?"

"No."

"Awesome. Then, I'm going to let Chief come around and take a look at you. Chiri, lights on."

Kuroko felt a smile flutter to his lips. He let his eyes wander across the room as 'Chief" stepped forward, drinking every little detail in. A window to his left through which he could see a group of five or so people peering in at him. To his right, two other men wearing surgical scrubs, one wringing his hands anxiously, the other casually cleaning his glasses. Kuroko looked in front of him. His eyes widened. There was a white human with glass-green eyes and white lips staring directly at him. His shock must have shown on his face, for 'Chief' chuckled and ruffled his hair.

"Like that robot? Its name is Chiri. Produced by the Akashi Company just a year ago. Of course, this is the latest version, Chiri 2.0.4. It looks pretty creepy, but it's really handy. See, look. Chiri, hand me the mirror."

The tension in Kuroko's shoulders released. The robot, though human in form, size, and shape, was clearly _not_ human. The year absence of sight must have made Kuroko forget what people looked like. Now, looking at it closely, he could tell that there were glints of metal at the joints, no light in the eyes, and a distinct, mechanical motion in its movements. The robot held its arm out to the 'Chief,' and from it, the man took the mirror. He held it in front of Kuroko. The teenager was so absorbed in watching these movements he hadn't seen in so long, that he didn't realize the 'Chief' meant for him to take it.

"Go on. Look at yourself. We tried to imitate the exact shade of your eyes, which is quite unique, by the way. Unique and very beautiful. It came out a little bit more of an electrical blue, but we hope you like it."

Kuroko took the mirror (amazing how he could pick things up so easily without having to grope around in the dark for them) and angled it until he saw his face. Pale peach. Pink. Black. Light blue. Electric blue. Two electric blue eyes mirrored his movements. He brought the mirror close until his nose was almost pressing against it.

"Do you like them?"

Up close, he could see tiny rings of dark blue that continuously zigzagged across the 'iris.' The black holes that were his 'pupils' began to contract and expand. The whites of his eyes were whiter than any natural ones, unblemished, without the veins he remembered seeing in his original eyes.

"Yes."

"Okay. We're going to give you some eye exercises and then test your vision, and then you're a free man."

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

'Chief' smiled at him and twirled around a finger a strand of hair hanging across his forehead. "Don't thank me; thank the engineering squad standing just outside. They made these eyes for you; my team and I just put them in and hooked everything up to your brain. Alright, Chiri."

Kuroko could feel impatience in his bones as the surgeons gave him various things to do with his eyes and held up objects and more objects in front of him. He wanted out. He wanted to go outside and see the world he hadn't seen in so long. He was already tired of looking at the cramped, white room with all its instruments and the robot standing eerily erect just in front of him. Finally, 'Chief,' whose name Kuroko learned to be Harasawa, clapped his hands together, announced him a perfect product, and helped him off the table. He clapped a 10000 yen bill into Kuroko's hand and told him to do whatever pleased him to celebrate regaining his sight.

Kuroko bowed deeply, feeling gratitude from the bottom of his heart. Being able to see again was almost like flying. Free from the darkness, he could almost feel light shining off his face as he gave his three saviors a small, small smile before shooting out the door. With the 10000 yen bill clenched tightly in his hands and with a continuous influx of light and colors flowing through his new, artificial eyes, he felt more alive than he had been in the past year.

The world outside hadn't changed much in his sight's absence; nevertheless, he stood still for a full five minutes, simply absorbing the sights. In the middle of Teikou city, he was where the latest technology and architecture resided. Buildings made entirely of reflective glass that acted also as solar panels shivered on their foundations, moving slowly to mime the sun's movements like a sunflower would. Linking the rooftops of the tallest buildings of over twenty stories high were long stretches of glass. They were like bridges, stretching out and casting their shadows over the ground below, only they were used for agricultural purposes. A thick layer of soil covered the glass in which the latest genetically engineered crops grew.

External elevators climbed the skyscrapers, leading to railways in the air on which small pod-like vehicles swept away. Nearly everything was off-ground now except for farms, as humans had overturned almost all the asphalt highways marring the earth in their attempts to make amends for their reckless pollution of the earlier years. Instead of roads now, there were forests clinging to the bottoms of every building. Small trails ran through the wilderness below for recreational purposes, but otherwise, life was lived mainly in the tops of the trees and above. Now that upper levels of the troposphere were being used for life, people were more careful with the air pollution.

Kuroko boarded one elevator and hopped into a yellow, driver-less taxi pod and punched in a destination. He wanted to see his parents first. He wanted to stick his head out the windows to watch the ground whizz past, but settled with sticking his face against the window for the view. At the speed the pod was going, the wind would whip his head off his shoulders. It took only a few moments for Kuroko to reach his destination. He boarded another elevator and descended all the way to the ground, where his electric blue eyes adjusted to the dimmer lighting.

He walked a while before he saw them. He smiled as widely as he could for them.

"Good evening, mother, father. I've gotten my eyes back. It feels great. I even got 10000 yen to spend after my operation was done."

He sat on his haunches, pulling out a few weeds.

"I'd forgotten how amazing sight is. I took advantage of the fact that I was born with it. Now, I'll treasure the gift you gave to me even more than before.

"Kise-kun, the friend I told you about last time I visited, is going to go through the same operation I had in a few days. I promised him I would stay in Teikou until he got out so that we could try to get our lives back on track together, so I think I'll rent a hotel for now. And then I'll look for an apartment and apply to some universities, since you always wanted me to get a degree in something I love."

He listened to the wind whistle through the treetops for a while, watching as the sky gradually grew darker and darker. He felt the itch of impatience in the very marrow of his bones and shifted his weight on the balls of his feet.

"…I want to see the sunset from somewhere high, so I'll be going now. Take care. I'll visit again soon."

He brushed the dirt off of the granite slab in the ground that read _Kuroko Kyoko, Kuroko Toru, loving mother and father. 2047-2086, 2046-2086._

Xxx

Kuroko got a room in the SKYline Aomine Hotel, using the inheritance from his parents' wills to pay the costs. Exhausted from the day's excitement, he kicked off his shoes and fell onto the bed, face-down, arms and legs spread out. Though it wasn't late, it didn't take long for him to drift off in the dark room that overlooked the city lights.

He began to dream.

Dreaming was a long time favorite activity for Kuroko. It had been the only time when he could see colors. He took solace in that fact and slept as long as he could, enjoying every dream he had, waking up disappointed after a night without dreaming. His dreams were often of his past, with his parents and an old childhood friend he hadn't seen in years who went by the name of Ogiwara Shigehiro. The most recurring dream, however, was of the accident in which both his parents died. They were in a pod, cruising along the railways smoothly, five hundred feet above the ground when an enormous tremor ran through the railings, sending them lurching forward into the next pod. Then, Kuroko would wake up into darkness and would try to quickly forget what he'd relived.

The dream he had that night was rather strange, as if he were looking through the eyes of someone else. There was no sound, no sense of touch, no taste, no smell. It was dark, nighttime, and he seemed to be sitting in a very luxurious room, looking out the windows into a dark sky laced with orange. Suddenly, the sight swerved, traveling across the room to face the door, which was opening. A man came through, a man with very dark red hair and matching eyes. He seemed to be saying something, but Kuroko couldn't hear. Kuroko could only guess that the man was displeased with something, judging by the severe downward curve to his lips. He grew uncomfortable, unable to move in this dream-body of his, only capable of watching the man shout and grow more and more furious until his anger drove him to picking up a mirror hanging on one wall and hurling it in Kuroko's direction. The mirror shattered against the window, and the man left. A maid scurried in, looking frightened, but backed out of the door, bowing courteously, as if Kuroko had motioned her to leave. He was bending over the broken glass now, picking up the broken pieces until skin broke and blood began to run, splattering against the glass. The hands collecting the glass halted, palms up with the mirror bits reflecting a pale face, pale lips, red hair, and a pair of very mismatched eyes.

Kuroko stared into those eyes, transfixed not only by their odd red-gold coordination, but more so by their complete and utter hollowness. They betrayed no emotion as they stared into themselves in the mirror piece. Then, a flash of pure frustration splashed across them, and the hand clenched tightly around the glass fragments, and Kuroko had time to see blood spurt before his own electric blue eyes opened into a soft morning light coloring his very blank hotel room.

* * *

_So, here's another KnB story. Hope you liked it! Leave a review on your way out if it's not too much trouble. _

_Some themes that will be present in the story: finding a dream, breaking free of other people's desires and expectations. I guess these themes reflect what's going on in my life right now as I enter college and decide what to do with the rest of my life. _

_To explain the extensive detail in technology, I am thinking about going into the biomedical engineering fields. Of course, as of now, I really have no clue about any terminology/official things, so if I botch something up, like medical terminology/procedures, point it out XD __As for Chiri, the robot is a mixture of Siri and Google Glass XD To activate Glass, you have to say, "OK, glass," and all it really can do well is take pictures without anyone noticing. _

_To those of you reading my other story Nineteen: A Truth of Red on Blue, I'm sorry for taking so long with the update! I'm trying really hard to crank it out, but somehow, writing this new character just put the brakes on everything. I'm hoping the next chapter will be up within a week or so._

_Anyways, thank you for reading! Have a nice day :)_


	2. Nice to meet you

**2**

"Kise-kun, good afternoon."

Kise Ryouta turned his bright face towards where he knew the door was, smiling broadly so that his perfectly white teeth shone at Kuroko, almost blinding him.

"Kurokocchi! You came back!"

"Of course I would," he replied, sliding the door closed gently behind him. "Sorry I rushed off without coming back. I was just too excited."

He smiled at his friend and roommate, drinking in his appearance, as this was the first time he'd ever seen Kise. The two boys had entered the hospital at the same time, having experienced crashes due to the same tremor running through the rails. Kise had also lost both parents in addition to a little sister; Kuroko couldn't imagine how that must feel. But unlike Kuroko, who was relying on the money his parents had left him, Kise was already rich himself, having been a rather well known model before his crash.

Kise was better looking than Kuroko had initially thought. The blond youth had been pretty quiet about his success as a model, so Kuroko assumed that his looks were only a little above average—but the truth was far from it. Kise's hair was a deep, warm golden color that made Kuroko want to reach out and touch it, and though Kise's eyes were a little misty, they were still a stunning gold. Kuroko felt a little wrench of disappointment in his heart; he wondered what Kise's eyes had looked like before the blond had gone blind.

Moving on, Kuroko took a look around the room, for the first time seeing where he had spent the last year. The place was like an apartment complex built into the hospital, specifically designed for the blind or disabled. Two people lived in each apartment, and a robot would come by every day with whatever was needed.

Kuroko said, "Closet," just for the kicks, and the long, rectangular booth came rolling forward at his disposal. The automated voice asked him what color shirt he would like to wear today; he answered blue, and blue shirts swung forward on coat hangers from the back for him. He frowned a little, for the first time seeing that the blues were all dark navy, which was not the color he had imagined when he had gotten dressed for the past year. Smiling at the creation for the blind, Kuroko tapped it lightly, sending it back to the corner.

"Having fun, Kurokocchi?" Kise teased, a string of jealousy woven into his voice.

"Sorry," Kuroko chuckled. He clapped his hands and watched with more fascination than necessary as the window darkened, blocking out the sun until the room was pitch-black.

"Stop that," Kise complained, clapping his hands twice, and then the sun was back.

Kuroko apologized again in amusement. He walked over to the glass desk pushed up against a wall and ran his hands over a small speaker embedded in one corner. Up until that point, Kuroko and Kise had been learning through audio what they were missing during their senior year of high school. It was difficult to adjust, but it was better than having to repeat a year.

"You've been all over the news, Kurokocchi," Kise said.

"Really?" Kuroko said in surprise.

"Haven't you been keeping updated?" Kise said. "It's because you're the first patient to have both eyes replaced artificially! They were running the recording from Chiri on the tests they gave you and calling it a major breakthrough. People said you sounded really unaffected by the 'gift the researchers bestowed on' you, but I could tell you were pretty geared up!"

"I was."

"Called it," Kise said, grinning marvelously. Kuroko chuckled to himself. He would have to hang around the blond more just to see that smile.

"How did your last test go?" asked Kuroko, finally tearing himself away from the amusements of re-discovering his room.

"Oh, it was great," Kise babbled energetically. "They said I was all ready for my surgery tomorrow." The edges around his eyes turned shrewd and he gave Kuroko a sly grin. "What's it like, being able to see again? See any hot chicks out there, huh?"

"That's none of your concern."

"Cold!" Kise pouted.

"But aside from that, it feels… very liberating. You'll know when you get out. It's a little indescribable, this feeling."

"Gosh, you're making me jealous. I can feel the happiness radiating off you."

Chortling, Kise stood from his chair and felt his way around the room to the table. His hands patted around until they found a cup full of coffee, which he brought carefully to his lips so as not to spill.

"You know, you'd think that with all this technology we have today, they'd make cups that fly over to you with a snap of your finger," Kise complained. "I mean, they have a closet, so why not cups? Coffee, Kurokocchi?"

"I can pour myself a cup—"

"No, no, I'll do it."

Kuroko smiled at his year-old friend. Kise, despite his inability to see, was quite determined to do everything on his own. He even tried to create a painting once, which failed horribly, as Kuroko, his model, ended up getting covered in paint instead of the canvas. Not that it would have worked in any case; Kise didn't know what Kuroko looked like.

"You know, now that I'm over the initial shock of being blind, I feel rather lucky," Kise said. "You remember how I was when we first landed in this place, right?"

"You were horrible."

Kise laughed uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his head. "You don't have to be so frank about it, yeesh. But, yeah, I remember thinking, _'wow that Kuroko kid is so calm, how does he do it? Isn't he upset at all?'_ But, anyways, like I was saying, I feel really lucky that all I lost is my sight. You know, I heard that the kid next door—Ao—Aomine or something, he's been going through some intense rehab and surgery right now because he can't walk anymore. Initially, he was paralyzed from the neck down, but they I think they implanted new nerves or something, so now all he _can't_ do is walk around. Can you imagine that? I thought not being able to see was bad, but then not being able to see_ and_ being unable to walk? Yeesh, I don't even want to think about it!"

"He's blind as well?"

"In one eye." Kise scrunched up his face. "But he's got it back now. His sight, I mean."

Something popped into Kuroko's head. "Wait… Aomine as in… Aomine of the Aomine Hotel Line?"

Kise snapped his fingers. "Ah, I _knew_ that name sounded familiar! Yeah! That's him, alright, although I think it's the son. No wonder he's here; Teikou has pretty much the best medical institutions in Japan these days, even better than Tokyo's. Gosh, I can't believe I forgot that name."

"How did he end up here? I thought really rich people are supposed to have the front line pods that have maximum safety."

Kise said, frowning, "Apparently, he was in the same situation as we were. That tremor through the Teikou MainRail, you know? He was just getting off from the airport, taking a taxi pod to his hotel, and then the rails shook…"

Kuroko's eyebrows knitted together. "I wonder how many other people are in this hospital because of that event."

"I know, right? I think there are quite a few. I heard the nurses talking about this one kid—apparently his parents pumped him up full of steroids when he was a child, so now he's some super giant. Of course, his parents went to some rehab for instructions on parenting, but I think they got put into some mental institute after that."

"You hear some really interesting things, Kise-kun."

Kise laughed, clapping his hands. "I know, right? I feel like a mom what with all the gossiping I do. But, there's not much else to do here. I mean, I can use the Scouter," he continued, waving around in the general direction of a pair of black and gold roller blades, "to get my way around this place, but outside, it's useless. And ever since the dog-culling event because of the dog flu going around, there haven't been any guide dogs in sight—or should I say in my case, sniffing distance? Hearing range? Touching parameter?"

Kuroko nodded, then, remembering Kise couldn't see, said, "Sure." He rose from his chair and sat on his haunches by the roller blades, laying a hand on them nostalgically. The blade's wheels were designed to follow a magnetized route laid out all across the building, specifically for the convenience of the blind. One spoke aloud a room number, or a general area like 'kitchen,' and the Scouter roller blades would activate and take the wearer to the designation using the magnetic rails running through the floors.

"But, hey, hey, listen to this. This morning, I was out without the Scouters because I wanted to go to the kitchens on my own, and I rammed into this really weird guy and his friend. The weird guy was—guess it."

"Also blind?"

"Well, yeah, but blinded by the same incident! The tremor! And he's going through your operation right now. His name is… Something weird with green in it. Midorima, I think? He was super weird and kept asking me about my horoscope sign and told me that today he has the worst luck according to Ohayo Asahi. Man, I didn't think anybody still followed that thing after they were debunked in 2084 for claiming that the world was going to end by meteor shower!"

"I thought that it was revealed that their airsite had been hacked and that the hoax only increased their following."

Kise grinned sheepishly. "Oh, really? My bad, then. In any case, his friend—Takaocchi (who's really cool by the way, and not blind) had to drag him away because he kept on blabbering about how Aquarius people were going to help him, which is apparently odd because Aquariuses and Cancers like him don't get along."

"For someone who keeps calling Midorima-san weird, you sure hung onto his words."

"Yeah, well," Kise said, turning a little pink, "it was interesting enough. I've been getting kind of bored and really lonely ever since you left…"

"I've been gone for only one day."

Kise shook his fists up and down like a baby and pouted, "_Too long!"_

Before Kuroko could chide Kise, there was a loud _crash! Bang! _outside that startled Kise out of his chair.

"I'll check on it, you stay here," Kuroko said. He strode to the door and cautiously poked his head out.

"Ow… Jeez, Shin-chan, be more careful!"

"I can't help it; I only just got my sight back, so it's reasonable to assume that I will be clumsy with my actions," a huffy voice retorted. "But, more importantly, my glasses…"

Kuroko blinked at the odd combination sprawled on the floor: a green-haired boy and a raven-haired boy with their limbs all tangled together as if one had tripped and dragged the other down along with him.

"That's why I _said_," the raven-haired one complained, "it's so _stupid_ to ask them to adjust your artificial eyes so that they have the same prescription as your original ones did! Why the heck would you want to keep your glasses?! Nobody has glasses these days!"

"They were my grandfather's. And for the sake of routine," the other muttered. "Now, Takao, are you going to nag like a woman or help me find my glasses?"

"Um, excuse me…"

"Whaotufoo!" 'Takao' squawked. "Holy—a-are you a ghost? S-Shin-chan, help…!"

"W-When did you get here?" 'Shin-chan' stammered, squinting at the blue blob he saw.

"I was here the entire time," Kuroko said. "And, are these your glasses?"

He held out a pair of thick, black frames, which 'Shin-chan' took hesitantly.

"Thank you. If you don't mind, could I ask you a question?" 'Shin-chan' said, rubbing his glasses on the edge of his shirt.

"Oh, come on, Shin-chan, don't accost everyone you see about their horoscopes. Sorry," Takao said, flashing Kuroko a grin. "This guy's nuts about Oha-Asa."

"Shut it, Takao."

"I'm an Aquarius, if that's what you were going to ask," Kuroko said, smiling. 'Shin-chan' muttered _I knew it_, and Takao sighed. To be asking about horoscopes and talking about Oha-Asa, these must be the people Kise met earlier that morning, Midorima and 'Takaocchi.' "I'm Kuroko, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Kuro-chan!" Takao said, shaking Kuroko's hand energetically. "Oh, are you _that_ Kuroko? As in, Kuroko Tetsuya?"

"Y-Yeah," Kuroko answered, looking a little baffled by the quick progression to rather unflattering nicknames.

"We've been hearing all about you since yesterday! Shin-chan here just got out of the same operation a few minutes ago, but get this! He was pretty much legally blind before he went _really_ blind, and then when he got his artificial eyes in, he asked the doctors to recalibrate them so that he could use his glasses!"

"W-What's wrong with that?" 'Shin-chan' sputtered, ears turning pink. "I just—wanted things to be normal again, that's all!"

Hiding a smile, Kuroko held his hand out to 'Shin-chan.' "Midorima-san, am I correct?"

"Huh?" Midorima looked taken aback, but reluctantly gave Kuroko his hand. "How did you know?"

"And Takao-san, right? I think you both met my friend this morning, Kise-kun."

Right on cue, Kise poked his head out of the room, complaining about how Kuroko was taking too long in investigating the cause behind the Great Explosions Outside, and how he was getting hungry and wanted to have lunch. Takao laughed and clapped Kuroko on the back, nearly sending him flying, relating how Kise had babbled endlessly about his great friend who was manly and super cool and probably really hot, too. At this, Kise turned bright red, and he started babbling loudly to block out Takao's teasing until a loud _bang_ cut them all off. Startled, they turned their heads towards the origin of the noise. Next to a nurse, a dark-skinned boy with navy hair glared at the group in front of him, his hands gripping a pair of crutches tightly.

"Will you get out of the damn way?" he growled in a low voice.

"A-Aomine-sama, please don't—"

"Shut _up_. Are you going to move your asses or stand there?" he snarled.

"A-Ah, right… Sorry…"

The four of them quickly moved to one side of the hallway and watched as Aomine made his way across painstakingly slowly on the sleek metal crutches. The nurse accompanying him stayed behind, apologizing for his rudeness.

"It's just that Aomine-sama is very frustrated with the slow progress he's making in regaining his perambulatory abilities," she said, casting a worried glance at the youth. "He only just acquired the ability to walk on crutches, but it took him nearly a month. Of course, that in itself is something to be celebrated. Most people take half a year to get to that stage after being in a paralytic state."

"Is he usually this grumpy?"

The nurse laughed uncomfortably. "Kind of. Actually, I knew him before he had his accident because his mother was often ill and came to this hospital, and I tended to her. He was a very happy, kind, bright boy back then."

"_Weird_," Takao muttered. "Can you imagine that grumpy-poo being cheerful?"

"I know, it seems difficult to imagine," the nurse said, smiling. Takao suddenly turned a little pink around his ears, rubbing his cheek bashfully; Midorima scoffed and stepped on Takao's foot. "But I think what really caused the change in personality was… well, Aomine-sama really loves basketball. He would play with some of the younger patients out in the hospital's sports facilities. But now… I think the prospect of never being able to play basketball again is hurting him more than anything."

"Oh…"

The nurse waved goodbye at them, sending them another lovely smile, which made Takao's ears turn red again.

"W-Who believes in love at first sight?" he said dazedly, earning himself a solid smack on the head from Midorima. "Kidding! Ow! Stop! Shin-chan!

"More seriously, though, I kind of feel bad for calling him a grumpy-poo, now," Takao admitted a little later as he patted the lumps on his head tenderly. "Shin-chan and I used to play basketball in high-school, too, until Shin-chan went and got his eyes gouged out by a hunk of metal."

Kise winced.

"Not that I know what it feels like to lose something like sight or a limb," Takao said, "but can you imagine suddenly being incapable of doing what you love?" Dropping the graveness of the situation, Takao said more lightly, "I think I'd go nuts if I went mute or something and couldn't tease Shin-chan anymore."

"Enough chatting, Takao," Midorima sighed. "I want to go out."

"Ah, wait, Midorimacchi, Takaocchi!" Kise said. "Let's all go out together to have some lunch!"

"I don't want to hang out with—"

"We _really_ want to hang out with you guys," Takao cheered. "Don't be a grouch, Shin-chan. This is a good opportunity to practice your friend-making skills—"

"I don't _need_ friends—"

"So you don't need me?!"

Midorima turned bright pink and sputtered, "W-well, you—you're—"

Takao looked imploringly at Midorima, who turned his face away hastily and furiously pushed up his glasses.

"Oh, gosh, I love how he's able to see my face now," Takao snickered. "Shin-chan!"

"S-Shut up! Fine, let's go together! But it's your treat, Takao."

* * *

After a very hectic lunch in which the four of them were thrown out of the restaurant, the two couples headed back to the hospital apartments, Kise to go back to his dorm, Midorima to spend one more night until he found a hotel room and apartment. Takao wanted to have a sleepover, so he dragged Midorima over to Kise and Kuroko's room and pulled out all the extra blankets and pillows he could find and spread them out over the floor.

Kuroko smiled at his antics. Takao seemed to be a very big-hearted boy with an ability to make everyone feel included. Kise was the only blind person in the room now, yet not once did Kuroko see him look as if he felt out of place or left out. And Midorima, who seemed as if he would be a loner in a normal situation, was continuously drawn into action, even giving a small smile once in a while due to Takao's infectious cheeriness.

"Oh? Kuro-chan, where are you going?"

"For a walk," Kuroko said simply.

"He does that all the time, Kurokocchi does," Kuroko heard Kise inform the other two as he got up from the floor and stretched. "He'll be back in half an hour."

"That's cute," Takao said with a sly smile. "You guys know each other well."

"Well, we were roommates for a year after all!" Kise grinned.

"I'll be back soon. Please enjoy yourselves," Kuroko said quietly, and then he disappeared.

His usual walk would involve one hand on the walls at all times and a pair of Scouters in his hands in case he got lost. After about his tenth blind amble around the building, Kuroko had gotten daring and opened the door that bleeped at him 'rooftop, rooftop' and stumbled onto the elevator that took him to the roof. He loved the feel there, away from the mumble jumble of the hospital rooms, the constant peepings from robots, and voices of nurses; he loved the wind in his hair and the freshness of the air thirty stories up above the ground.

So he walked to the door that bleeped at him, opened it wide, and climbed into the elevator. In no time at all, he was stepping out onto the glass roof, marveling at the greenhouse he hadn't known was on the top floor. He stood on the glass for a while like that, looking down into the foliage, before shaking himself and walking out.

He'd caught the sun at the right moment; it was just beginning to paint the sky dark blue and pink. He thought he'd never get over how beautiful a sunset was. Of course, he'd seen hundreds of them over his 18 years of life, but after a year-long deprivation of their immense beauty, seeing them anew felt so different and breathtaking.

A thin glass wall ran across the entire rooftop to keep people from falling off. Kuroko ran his eyes along the entire shimmering length until they met a dark shadow standing right in front of the sunset. Quietly, Kuroko walked forward until he was leaning against the glass railings right next to the figure, which he recognized as—

"Aomine-san, right?"

The grey-eyed boy jolted, sputtering, "What the—hell, where did you come from?"

"I was here for a while; you just didn't notice me."

"Hell I didn't!"

"I'm Kuroko Tetsuya," Kuroko said, holding out a hand. "We ran into each other in the hallway earlier today. It's good to meet you, Aomine…"

"…Daiki. Aomine Daiki."

Reluctantly, Aomine took Kuroko's hand.

"I haven't met you on the roof before. In fact, it's the first time I've even met you at all."

"Yeah, well, I… was only able to come to this place starting today."

"Meaning?"

A scowl crossed Aomine's dark face. He tapped his legs with the crutches in his hands. "These things. I only started being able to walk around, and somehow this is the first place I ended up."

"It is a beautiful spot," Kuroko commented. Letting the breeze ruffle his bright blue hair, he leaned over the glass rail, peering down into the forest below. He saw the trees sway under his gaze and smiled at the deep emerald tint to the woods.

"…It is."

"I heard about your story from the nurse," Kuroko said plainly. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Aomine bristled. From the corner of his eyes, Kuroko could see his knuckles turn white.

"Yeah, yeah, people say they're sorry all the time, but what will sorry do? I'm tired of hearing that."

"You shouldn't be so harsh on them. It's the only thing they can say."

"Then it's better for them to just shove their crap," Aomine growled. "And they only say it to be polite. If I weren't the son of some jackass with some expensive hotel lines, they wouldn't go out of their way to say 'oh, sorry, let me know if there's anything I can do for you.'" He hit the glass wall with a crutch. "I'm sick of this place."

Kuroko tilted his head, his electric blue eyes studying Aomine's face until the dark-skinned youth shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

"You're sad," Kuroko suddenly observed.

"What?"

"Sad. You're angry, but more than anything, you're sad. And to cover your sadness up, you just act angry. Isn't that it?"

"What's with you?" Aomine sputtered, stepping away from Kuroko. But his legs, stiff and slow, tangled together and he fell on his rear. Cursing, he struggled to stand.

It was a tough sight to see; Kuroko could feel a needle in his heart. Aomine was clearly well built, his muscles standing out under the black v-neck tee he wore. But then his legs barely supported him, and it was a struggle for him to stand or walk. Take away the crutches, and it was impossible for him to stand. To see someone who should be so strong be absolutely weak in the face of an injury…

To see someone who had lost what he'd loved due to a simple turn of fate was heartbreaking.

Finally getting to his feet, Aomine waved Kuroko away and said, "Say what you want, I don't care. I'm leaving."

Kuroko was silent. Now alone, he turned back to the sun, which was just slipping out of sight, and remained on the roof until the stars began to pop into existence. He only remembered he promised to be back in when a worried Takao climbed out of the elevator with the other two in tow. Declaring it to be a fine night, Takao ran into the building and came back up with a bundle of blankets in his arms, and together, the four of them spent the rest of their hours awake under the endless night sky, feeling the chilly breeze slide across their skin, listening to the silent calls of the stars.

* * *

That night, Kuroko had a very vague, confusing dream filled with mostly red. He couldn't make head or tails of it. A blinding flash and a stab of pain sent his mind reeling, and he could feel himself returning to reality. It reminded him of the previous night's dream, where the pain from grabbing onto broken glass woke him up. Kuroko scrabbled to keep a hold on his dream though he didn't know why; it felt important. But, it was too late; his eyes were opening unto a black, star-speckled sky, which greeted him softly.

Disturbed, Kuroko rolled on his side, finding himself with a face full of Kise's hair. Surprisingly, it smelled as good as it looked, kind of like dandelions and peaches. He chuckled to himself at his strange reaction, but found solace in it. So, he settled in closer to Kise, with a hand barely brushing the other boy's back as he breathed in that scent deeply. Presently, he was back asleep again, and in a few hours, Kise would wake and roll around in his sleepy daze and find his nose pressing right up against Kuroko's, which would make him squawk in embarrassment and horror, waking Takao and earning himself a morning filled with teasing and red ears. But this would all come to pass in the future; for now, Kuroko lay peacefully asleep next to his friends under the wide, free sky, waiting for morning to come.

* * *

_Thanks for all the interest shown so far! Feedback as always is appreciated. _

_Have a nice day, everyone!_


	3. Just don't give up

**3**

It was still dark outside when Kuroko woke for the second time. Careful to not jostle the others, he stood from the blankets and stretched. It felt good to wake under the open sky; the wind was fresh and cool and pinks were just beginning to dust the blues. On bare feet, he stepped over his friends, who were sleeping like logs, and headed to the elevator, planning on making a quick stop at the bathroom before telling the others to rise and shine.

Feeling like taking a walk, he went down to the bottom floor, where there was a restroom open to the general public. To get there, he had pass through glass doors leading outside and walk across a little park area where the younger patients would often play. It was nearly deserted at this time save for a few balls lying around and a boy on crutches who was standing on the mini-basketball court.

Kuroko paused at the glass doors, his electric blue eyes on the person he knew as Aomine Daiki. He felt a little pang of sadness at the sight. Somehow, even though he'd never even seen Aomine handle a basketball, he could tell that it was there on that court that Aomine belonged. The navy-haired boy looked so out of place in the hospital and on those crutches, but he was a perfect piece on the courts. Aomine turned, and on his face was an expression so full of longing that Kuroko felt hotness prick his eyes.

Kuroko turned around, feeling that disturbing Aomine's peace would be extraordinarily rude. Besides, going to the bathroom was now not number one priority; he had new plans.

Meanwhile, the nurse stationed at the reception desk glanced around quickly to check if the coast was clear. No one was in sight. Sighing in relief, she raised her hand to her nose. Something inside had been bugging her all morning, and, unable to simply get up and take a bathroom break, she had been simply itching for this moment of solitude. Being dark outside, hardly anyone was walking around at this ungodly hour—so, now was her chance. The glorious moment of relief was about to come; her finger neared her nose and—

"Excuse me."

Almost shrieking, the nurse jumped, bringing her hand down so hard that it cracked against the desk. The blue-eyed boy watching her winced in sympathy as she moaned aloud.

"C-Can I help you?" she gasped out, eyes watering. _Damn those boogers._

The boy's look was very vague, so she couldn't tell if he'd seen what she was just about to do or not. She hoped not. The boy was very good-looking; oh, how embarrassed she felt now. She resolved to resist any future temptations to pick her nose in the epiphany that she might meet her soul mate while on desk duty—and it just wouldn't do to have her first meeting with her soul mate consist of nose-picking.

"I'd like to request a check on a patient called Aomine Daiki."

"Ah, Aomine-sama isn't taking visitors," the nurse dismissed. "He said something about too many people trying to get on his good side to have connections with his father."

"I didn't come for that," the boy said blandly.

"You didn't?" the nurse said, peering up at the boy. Oh, yes, he was very good-looking indeed. She liked that shade of blue very much. She shook her head. She had to stop these sorts of thoughts at work.

"No. I wanted to know when his walking therapies, if that's what you call them, are scheduled."

"Oh."

The boy gave her a miniscule smile, and suddenly, her face felt very hot. She fanned herself and popped open the first button on her uniform.

"Right. Aomine Daiki, right? Just to make sure you're not an assassin or something, can I ask why you'd need this information?"

The boy shrugged. "I wanted to visit him and help him out during his rehab sessions."

"That's very sweet," the nurse said, already pulling up Aomine's schedule. "Are you a friend of his?"

The pause made her look up to see a rather bemused expression on the boy's handsome face. All of a sudden he smiled.

"Yes. I am."

Something about the way he said it suggested that he would like to add on a '_or I will be soon_,' but the nurse chose to ignore it.

"If you have a device I can transfer the information to…"

"I left it in my room, sorry. Could I have a paper copy?"

"Of course."

From a slit in the wall, a paper shot out. The nurse caught it deftly and handed it to the boy with a sweet smile.

"There you go."

"Thank you." He turned to leave, but stopped abruptly. "Uhm, I'm sorry to say this, but…" Sounding very apologetic, he said, "You were speaking aloud the entire time."

Before that new piece of information could fully process in the nurse's head, the boy was gone.

She put her head down on the desk and cried.

* * *

"Good luck, Kise-kun," Kuroko offered to the jittery Kise, who was currently bouncing up and down on the bed.

"Ah, I'm so _nervous_," Kise wailed. "What if they get it wrong? What if they mess up and poke my brains out by accident? What if—"

"Will you be _quiet_ for two seconds?" Midorima crabbed, scowling fiercely. "Thanks to all of you, I have a massive headache right now from sleeping on such a hard surface—mmf!"

Takao had grabbed Midorima's mouth. "Aw, don't be a spoil sport, Shin-chan. At least be supportive of Kise-chan before he goes under the knife. I know _you_ for one were scared poopless—"

"I was _not!_"

Takao grinned and poked Midorima's face. "Yeah, yeah, say what you want." He turned to Kise and slapped him on the back. "Don't wet yourself, now! Sorry we can't stay, but Shin-chan wants to go see his parents, and I'll be going with him. We can all hang out later! Let me know how it goes; I gave you my FlareID, right?"

"Ah, no," Kuroko said, taking out a sleek panel of glass that was the size of his palm. It had four layers to it, which, when he shook them, expanded to make a square of glass four times the size of the original.

Takao dug around in his pocket, clicking his tongue. "Damn, it fell apart again… I have to go buy myself a new one, but they're so expensive, geez." Tongue sticking out, he fiddled with two pieces of glass, jamming them together. He ran a finger over the glass in the shape of a star, and the glass went opaque, turning into a screen. He tapped the device against Kuroko's, and Kuroko's lit up with a photo ID of Takao before fading into transparency again.

"Oh, I'll give you Shin-chan's too."

"Don't give that out to just anyone, idiot!"

"What, we're all friends, right?"

Grumbling, Midorima handed Kise a yellow handkerchief, saying something about how it was his lucky item for the day. They departed with a salute, and then Kise and Kuroko were alone together again. Kuroko laid a hand on Kise's shoulder.

"It's about time. You'll be fine, Kise-kun."

"You think so?"

"Maybe."

"Noooo…"

Chuckling, Kuroko led him across the bridge connecting the apartments to the hospital. He sent him off with a nurse and then took an elevator down to the bottom floor. He pulled out a folded piece of paper he was keeping in the back pocket of his jeans, examine it, and then wandered around for a bit before ending up in front of a yellow door. He knocked twice before entering.

Right away, he almost ran into a man just getting used to a pair of metal legs, but with quick reflexes, he sidestepped and avoided a small accident. The room was filled with these sorts of people. One lady in the corner was bench-pressing over two hundred pounds with a pair of silver arms; a small boy was just beginning to stand from a wheelchair. Of course, no one succeeded in noticing him, so he slipped through the public rehabilitation center and into the private sectors. He wandered around a bit, avoiding being noticed, as he was prone to do, until he finally found the person he was looking for.

He slipped into the room, invisible, and sat in a chair, twiddling his thumbs as Aomine Daiki clamped his hands onto a rail and tried to walk. It was a miserable attempt. There was no nice way to put it. Aomine fell over, was helped up by a patient-as-a-rock therapist, and started over. Kuroko was beginning to get a little bored, rethinking his decision to be here.

"Now then, just take it slowly. No, don't put your weight into your arms so much, that's called cheating."

"It's called making my life easier," Aomine snarled. He was starting to work up a sweat.

"Would you like to take a break? It's been an hour already."

Aomine waved his instructor off, promptly falling down again. With a scowl, he clambered back to his feet. "You can go. I'll stay here and… try again."

Looking all too pleased to take his leave, the instructor whisked out of the room without noticing the shock of bright blue hair in the corner. Kuroko quietly got up and walked behind Aomine, who was concentrating hard on moving his right foot. Unable to get his attention, Kuroko coughed lightly. Aomine jumped.

"What the—what are you?! Are you actually some evil spirit who's haunting me?" Aomine spluttered.

"I'm a little hurt by that."

"Well—then, why do you always pop up out of nowhere?! Can't you show up normally?"

Kuroko shrugged. "I've been here for the past fifteen minutes."

"_Why."_

"I just wanted to see how you were doing. Is that a crime?"

Unable to say anything to that, Aomine grumbled and turned back to the rail. "So you've watched me struggle with moving a leg for the past fifteen minutes? Strange interest you have there."

"No," Kuroko corrected lightly. "I've been watching you not give up for fifteen minutes."

"What?"

"I've been watching a marvelous display of very strong will," Kuroko explained without explaining much, as evident by Aomine's expression. Then the dark-skinned boy nodded his head and said, "So, in other words, you've been creeping on me."

"No."

With a sigh, Aomine sat down, finding it difficult to remain standing for so long. Kuroko joined him with a soft plop.

"Why are you here, really."

"I came because I wanted to tell you that I think it's still possible for you to play basketball."

Aomine's head snapped so quickly Kuroko thought it had broken. The other boy's eyes were tumultuous with emotion, twisted between anger, hurt, hope, and distrust. But in a second, it all melted away into a bland mask.

"Ah, I know what kind of person you are now," Aomine said, his voice carefree yet dull, a strange combination that gave Kuroko the sense that he was reining back his anger. "You're one to tell me to never give up while believing that I'll never succeed, aren't you?"

Taken aback, Kuroko tilted his head a little as his eyebrows furrowed. "No."

"Then you must be one of those people who take joy in giving me hope and then seeing me suffer."

"…No."

"Then you must be a complete retard," Aomine said. "You saw me. I can barely stand, let alone walk. Playing basketball again is out of the options."

"I don't think so."

"Well, you can hurry your ass out of here," Aomine said. "I gave up on basketball a long time ago, anyways, so I'm not interested in hearing your pep-talk, if that's what you came here for."

"What do you mean you gave up?"

"I mean _I gave up,_" Aomine said harshly. "I can't play anymore, so that's the end of the story. I'm out of here; you're pissing me off."

Aomine moved to retrieve his crutches leaning against the wall, but Kuroko darted out his hand and grabbed the other's arm.

"I said, I'm _out_," Aomine snarled. He shook Kuroko's grip off. "And don't come near me again, you hear?"

"I'll be back tomorrow," Kuroko said.

With a _you really just don't listen!_, Aomine left on his crutches, slamming the door behind him. The automated response mechanism activated, and the door caught itself and slid shut gently. Shrugging, Kuroko got up and brushed himself off. He wondered if Kise's operation was done yet.

* * *

"I'm sorry I can't come with you, Kise-kun," Kuroko apologized. It was the day after Kise had gotten his sight back, a truly splendid moment for both males. The moment he recognized Kuroko's voice coming from Kuroko himself, Kise pounced on the smaller boy, sobbing loudly and saying _oh, wow, I can't believe I'm actually seeing this!_ They stayed one more night in their old apartment, and then Kise invited Kuroko to go sight-seeing with him for the whole day. But, Kuroko, having other plans, regretfully declined. He explained Aomine's situation to Kise, who looked mildly disappointed but responded with a cheerful grin.

"Ah, geez, cut it out already, Kurokocchi," Kise said. "That's about the fifth time you've said it already. Don't worry! I'm not offended or anything."

"I know… I still feel bad, though. After all, I did promise you that I'd take you around…"

"Don't sweat it," Kise said, ruffling Kuroko's hair. "Being able to see your face is good enough for me. You're pretty good-looking, I gotta admit…"

Kuroko smiled. "You, too. I'm sorry again."

Kise threw his hands up in the air. "Are you asking me to get mad at you? I already understand that this is pretty important to you, so don't worry. Takaocchi went ahead and messaged me to say that he and Midorimacchi would join me on the Teikou tour and that he's pretty bummed that you're not coming along, but… that's besides the point! I'll be fine; you go ahead and do your thing. I promise that by the end of the day, I'll have found a sweet apartment for us to rent out, and then we can hang together all the time and take another tour with Aomine when he's all better."

"If he gets better…"

Kuroko looked shocked at his own words and glanced nervously at Kise, who, to his surprise, was laughing.

"What? Kurokocchi, have some faith in yourself! You're doubting yourself now of all times after you went ahead and made up your mind?"

"Sorry, I just… Was it… arrogant of me to say that I would help him get better?" Kuroko mumbled, fixing his eyes on the ground. Kise grabbed his face and forced him to look up.

"No way. _No_ way. After all, you saved me, didn't you?" Kise said with a wry smile. "If you could save me, you can save him. I believe in you, Kurokocchi, and you need to start believing in yourself, too. Now get out there and kick Aomine's butt until he can walk on two legs again. I'm not missing out on a great day with my best friend for nothing, okay?"

With his friend's words, Kuroko felt a great weight lift off his shoulders. He nodded, smiling.

"Thank you, Kise-kun."

After a final goodbye hug, Kise was off. Just in time; Kuroko was about to be late for his unofficial appointment. He hopped onto the elevator to the bottom floor, went through the yellow door, and popped quietly into Aomine's room in time to see a different therapist throw his hands up in the air.

"This is awful," the man said. "Truly awful! They pay me for this, but I don't see the point in helping someone who cannot be helped! I'm going to be frank with you, Aomine-san, but there is really no hope for you. You must have had a really bad crash, right? Was your spine severed? I've seen patients like you, and no matter how much I try, they never improve. I would advise you to opt for a wheelchair, and I can recommend you some very good ones, the best models—"

"Please don't say that."

"What? I'm saying the truth, Aomine-san—"

"I'm over here."

Screaming, the man jumped and clung onto the wall for dear life as Kuroko seemingly popped into existence from nothing. Shorter than the average male, he didn't strike a very impressive or intimidating figure even with his mouth turned down and a crease in his brow. Nevertheless, this didn't stop him from stepping in between the therapist and Aomine.

"I think the reason why none of those people were able to recover is that they didn't get enough support," Kuroko said. "Because there were people like you who continued to tell them that they would never improve, never be able to obtain their previous lives again."

"What?" the man said, looking extremely ruffled at having his authority being compromised. "There are certain things that absolutely cannot be improved—"

"But you don't know if you don't try, right?" Kuroko cut in. "If you give up without even trying, then there's no way that things can be fixed."

"Some things can't be fixed! And where did you come from? You shouldn't be in here."

Kuroko ignored the question. "I don't mean to be rude, but if you're not willing to devote everything you have into making your patients succeed, I don't think you should have this job," Kuroko said with a small bow. "Now, if you don't mind, I'll be taking Aomine-san," he said, grabbing Aomine, "and leaving. Goodbye."

"Hey, what—"

"Come back here!"

Handing the crutches to Aomine, Kuroko dragged him out of the room and out into the recreational area where he'd spotted Aomine the other day.

"Hey—chill out, man!" Aomine cried out. "I'm gonna trip and fall, and it's not gonna be pretty…"

Kuroko let Aomine sit down on one of the benches, watching him with a frown.

"I told you not to come back, so what the hell are you doing here?" Aomine said with a glare.

"And I promised you I would be back, so of course I would come," Kuroko returned, settling down next to Aomine with a sigh. "I hope you didn't listen to a word that man said back there."

"He was saying the truth," Aomine said. "And I was prepared. I already have a form filled out to submit for my withdrawal from this place."

"What?" Kuroko said, looking dismayed. "Please tell me you didn't say that."

Aomine waved a dismissive hand in the air. "You heard me. I'm giving up."

Kuroko scrutinized Aomine, then shook his head.

"You don't really mean that," he said in a monotone voice, and Aomine stiffened. "You say you gave up, but you didn't, not really. Or maybe it's that you want to give up, but you can't. Because you love basketball, don't you? Don't try to lie," Kuroko said quickly, seeing Aomine open his mouth angrily, "I saw you on the mini-court yesterday morning, and I almost cried for you."

"Wha—"

"The last thing you want to do is believe that you can't play anymore."

Aomine snarled and said angrily, "Listen, I said I was giving up, so deal with it!"

"Why are you giving up?" Kuroko said, getting to his feet. For the first time, he sounded almost angry. "Why? I don't understand. Why are you giving up on your dreams and what you love so easily? I might understand if you had a terminal disease and due to die in a month, but this—this, I can't!"

"W-Whoa, calm down," Aomine said, holding up his hands. "Easy."

Breathing hard, Kuroko sat down again. "Sorry. It was just a touchy topic for me. I didn't mean to get so worked up."

Aomine looked curious, but didn't press. They remained in silence for a while, listening to the birds in the trees and the children playing around them. Kuroko saw Aomine's eyes stray to the mini basketball court where six small children were tossing around a basketball.

"Why are you so persistent?" Aomine said suddenly. "I don't get it."

Kuroko hesitated. "It's just… I had a friend… who went through a similar experience as you. And what I regret the most is not pushing him forward in his darkest moments. I let him give up, because I didn't believe he could do anything anymore. You right now remind me of him, and I feel like this is a chance to redeem myself." Kuroko paused, looking up at Aomine with his bright blue eyes. "You're hurting, and I can't let you walk away knowing that you're drowning yourself in darkness."

"That sounded so overdramatic just now."

Kuroko shrugged.

"Whatever," Aomine sighed, gathering his crutches together. "Walking on my own is going to take forever, and I'm ready to throw in the towel. There's nothing left for me, so I don't really care what happens to me anymore."

"That sounds pretty melodramatic, too, Aomine-san."

Aomine glared. "Shut up. All I'm saying is the truth. Basketball aside, no one will care if I can walk or not."

"What about your parents?"

Aomine snorted. "My mother's dead. And it would be a miracle if that jackass of a father even dropped by to visit me."

The way Aomine wouldn't meet Kuroko's eyes when he said that hurt. Aomine spoke in a harsh tone, but the light in his grey eyes signaled a different story. Kuroko was reminded by a hurt child who didn't want to admit to feeling pain.

"So he doesn't come to support you?"

The flinch was subtle, but Kuroko's eyes captured it. "What are you getting at?"

"I'll support you, then, Aomine-san. I'll shadow you." Kuroko tilted his head and smiled softly. Maybe what Aomine needed more than anything was someone by his side—a friend, some support pillar, anything to show that he was not in this alone. From the way Aomine talked about his parents, and the way he said _there's nothing left for me_, Kuroko sensed a need deeper than just basketball. One that was more fundamental, perhaps more important.

"I'll become your shadow."

The glint in Kuroko's eyes was so unnerving that had Aomine been standing, he would have taken a step back.

"If nobody else will, then I will do it. Just don't give up."

"I've already told you, basketball is impossible—"

"I can't promise you that you'll be able to play basketball like before," Kuroko cut in, "but I can promise you that if you don't try, you'll _never_ be able to do it. There's no harm in trying," he said softly, looking Aomine straight in the eye. "You won't lose anything by trying."

The anger in Aomine's face was gone, replaced by something akin to confusion, innocence, and hope. The smallest of smiles lifted Kuroko's lips.

"I'll come to every rehab session you have and support you as best as I can until you can walk again. And then after that, I'll help you with basketball until you can play again. That's what I mean by when I say I'll be your shadow, Aomine-san. I'll be your support, even when no one else is rooting for you. So long as you never throw in the towel, I won't either. Do we have a deal?"

He held out his fist. Aomine stared at it. Then he looked up at Kuroko, and, though Aomine didn't know it himself, his grey eyes said, _I'm trusting you, so don't give up on me, because I'll really break._

His fist met Kuroko's with a light tap, and for the first time since Kuroko had seen him, Aomine smiled.

* * *

_Thank you for all the support up till now, everyone! I hope you are enjoying the story so far! If there's any OOCness/issues bugging you about any of the previous three chapters, please let me know; I am always looking for ways to improve. Feedback is lovely and always appreciated. :)_

_Have a nice day!_


	4. Knives are dangerous

**4**

"Ah, Aomine-san, you use a wheelchair?"

The look on Aomine's face was a little sour, as if he were ashamed and irritated by the question.

"Yeah, well," he tried to say matter of factly, "you saw me. I go on crutches about as quickly as a snail, so I have to borrow this if I want to go around at a normal pace…"

Sighing, he dropped his crutches into a small compartment under the wheelchair and plopped into it with a dejected look.

"Alright, you ready, Kuroko—Kuroko? Hey, what're you—"

"Sorry, I felt the need," Kuroko said, stowing away his FlareX, the small four squares of glass he'd used to get Takao's FlareID. "I hope you don't mind me taking a picture."

"Well, not that I can change it now—_now_ what're you doing!?"

Next to Aomine, Kuroko had pulled up a wheelchair and was sitting in it, poking at the different buttons and contraptions.

"I wonder how this works… this seems really complicated," Kuroko said with a frown. "How do you work this, Aomine-san?"

"What are you doing…"

"I just wanted to see what Aomine-san's day-to-day life is like, so I figured that the best place to start," Kuroko said, jerking forward as he hit a button, "is here."

"…are you making fun of me?"

"Not at all," Kuroko said calmly.

Aomine looked at him warily. "This isn't making me feel better, you know… you bringing yourself down to my level to make me feel more comfortable."

"I'm not doing it for you," Kuroko said, though part of him admitted to doing just that. "I've always wanted to ride around in one of these things. And now that I have the chance to—"

"I-Idiot, don't press that button!"

Kuroko's seat lurched forward, sending him flying off the wheelchair in a graceful arch at the end of which he landed in a messy pile.

"Oh my goodness," Kuroko said in a daze as he sat up. "Why on earth do they have such a mechanism on a wheelchair?"

Rubbing the back of his neck, Aomine grumbled. "I actually don't know myself, but don't do that again. Fine. You want to ride that wheelchair, I'll teach you how. Just don't go catapulting yourself off an elevator, you hear?"

Smiling, Kuroko sat back down in the wheelchair and listened as Aomine explained how to direct, maneuver, and command the device. Just as Kuroko claimed to have the gist of it, the wheelchair spat him out, causing Aomine to laugh, the first laugh Kuroko had heard from the boy. It was a good sound, Kuroko decided as he sneakily captured another picture, and a good expression. He'd have to figure out how to make Aomine laugh more.

"Alright, this is too difficult," Kuroko groaned after landing on the floor for the tenth time. "I can't handle this."

"You just have no talent for this," Aomine said, grinning. "Well, come on, I'll take you to my room."

Aomine led the way, looking extraordinarily restless in the wheelchair where all he had to do was move a finger in order to move. Kuroko could hear him sigh in relief when they arrived in front of a door. Aomine took the crutches out from underneath his seat and eagerly hopped to his feet.

"Well, it's not much… half the room's empty because my old roommate just moved out, and the new one hasn't moved his stuff in yet… but come on in.

A retina scanner verified Aomine's identity before the door opened, and he and Kuroko entered the room.

"Oh, Aomine, you're back?" a voice boomed out at them. A head popped out from around the corner of a wall and its thick eyebrows popped up in surprise to see a newcomer. "A friend?"

"Yeah. This is Kuroko Tetsuya, and Kuroko, this is—"

The man himself emerged fully from around the corner. He was large—tall—enormous—or would be, had he not been sitting in a wheelchair identical to the one Aomine was nudging into the room. Before Aomine could fully introduce the man, he broke out into song.

"This tree~ What kind of tree is it~? Written with the kanji for 'tree' and the one from 'great luck'… 'Kiyoshi!'"

Kuroko and Kiyoshi stared at each other while Aomine heaved a sigh.

"…Also!" Kiyoshi continued with a serious face on. "A kanji character from 'iron barbell'… and one from 'common employee'… make Teppei!"

"…okay."

"Sorry, he's kind of weird," Aomine mumbled to Kuroko, whose face betrayed no sign of being weirded out.

"Want some candy?" Kiyoshi said holding up a bag of it. "I just got some from the market upstairs. It's really good!"

"…no, thanks."

"Oh, really? Okay, then, more for me!" And he cheerfully popped some into his mouth, crunching down as if there was nothing better in life than eating candy.

Kiyoshi Teppei… the name sounded familiar to Kuroko, but he couldn't place his finger on it. The man gave him a knowing grin and increased Kuroko's feeling that he should remember this man from someplace… Then it clicked.

"You're… the person on the biomedical engineering squad, aren't you? The one that designed these eyes for me," Kuroko said.

"Bingo!" Kiyoshi cheered. "I was wondering how long it'd take you to remember. We never met, actually; I only got the scans of your head from the hospital, so no worries. I only recognized you from the shape of your head after all!"

"The… the shape of my head?"

Kiyoshi nodded energetically and directed his wheelchair to Kuroko. "Yup! Everyone's head shape is different! That, and your eyes, of course. Your eyes are very unique, so I could never forget them! Oh, by the way, I'm Kiyoshi Teppei."

He held out a hand, which Kuroko accepted slowly.

"You mentioned that…"

With a huff, Aomine shook his head and headed off, presumably to the kitchen to get Kuroko something to eat and drink. Meanwhile, Kiyoshi babbled on.

"Did I? My bad. Anyways, I bet you're surprised to see that I'm in this place, aren't you?"

Kuroko nodded.

"Well," Kiyoshi said with a broad smile, "I had a bit of a bad accident a few days ago with a friend of mine and injured my legs! It's nothing big, though; I should be up and about in a week. Luckily, I was able to finish with my team the third and final pair of eyes for a boy named Kise Ryouta before my accident."

"Ah… I thank you for that."

"Oh, you know him?"

"He was my roommate. He's very happy with his new eyes, so I thought I should thank you for him. Oh, and, thank you for these," Kuroko said, bowing deeply. "I can't express how truly grateful I am."

"Hey, hey, rest easy," Kiyoshi said, patting Kuroko on the shoulder. Kuroko made a mental note that he should grow more—if a guy in a wheelchair was able to so easily touch his shoulder, Kuroko must really be awfully short…

"I'm just glad my inventions were able to come in handy! How are they, by the way? Oh, come in, by the way, don't just stand there."

"Excuse the intrusion," Kuroko said, slipping off his shoes. Kiyoshi led him to a couch.

"Do they get hot? Painful? Itchy?"

"No."

"Do they pop out of your sockets sometimes? We had that problem with some of the rats," Kiyoshi said. Kuroko looked suddenly unhappy and held his hands to his eyes. Kiyoshi hastily amended, "Ah, but we got rid of that problem. Just making sure."

A chime rang from the door and the wall opposite to Kuroko flickered before revealing a view of the hall right outside the door. A man stood with a basket hanging off one arm, and another man beside him bounced up and down on his heels, looking excited. Both were dressed in v-necks and shorts, looking as if they'd just come for a casual visit.

"Ah, that's Mitobe and Koganei. Come in, you two!" Kiyoshi called. The door opened, and they entered, bowing a little. "What's the matter, Mitobe?"

Mitobe, the man with the black hair and thick eyebrows shrugged a little and made a small movement with his hands.

"Mitobe said," the other, Koganei, said despite the fact that Mitobe had not uttered a word, "that you look worse than yesterday."

Mitobe made another gesture, which apparently translated to, "And he wants to know whether you've been taking your medication."

"Whaaaat," Kiyoshi protested. "I'm fine! Oh, this is Kuroko, by the way."

Koganei and Mitobe started, looking around the room. "Who?"

"It's good to meet you," said a voice by their elbows. Shrieking, Koganei grabbed onto Mitobe and hurled him forward as a shield.

"S-Since when?!"

"The entire time," Kuroko returned, looking unfazed. He held out a hand, which Mitobe shook gingerly. "Am I right to guess that you both also helped Kiyoshi in making my eyes?"

"T-That's right," Koganei said, coughing. "Hey, they look pretty good on you! I was wondering what kind of jerk would have such weird eyes—"

"…excuse me…"

"But, hey, you're a pretty… unremarkable guy!" Koganei laughed, slapping Kuroko on the back. Kuroko looked a little put off, but smiled.

"Thank you," he said.

"Ah, Kiyoshi-san, you brought more people over," Aomine sighed as he entered the room. "Yo, Koganei, Mitobe."

"Heyy, you little squirt!" Koganei said, pouncing on Aomine. "How're the legs?"

Aomine opened his mouth, looking as if he wanted to say something along the lines of _awful, and they won't get better_, but he caught Kuroko's eye. Sighing and rubbing the back of his neck, he mumbled, "Not so great, but… they'll get better."

The older trio looked shocked at his words; Kiyoshi's mouth had dropped open, Koganei's as well.

"Wha—well, that's great, Aomine!" Kiyoshi said, slapping Aomine on the back so that he tumbled to the ground. "Wow! That's remarkable improvement already!"

"Just the other day, when we came by and asked how he was doing, he got his panties all in a twist," Koganei explained to Kuroko. "He said something about how it was none of our business and that he wasn't going to get any better."

Kuroko nodded. "I know. He was like that when we met, too. And now…"

Kiyoshi caught Aomine looking at Kuroko, and he suddenly grinned. "Ahh, I get it now, you're looking to impress the handsome boy over there, aren't you?"

Turning bright red—or as red as his tan skin would allow—Aomine sputtered, "_No!"_

"Don't deny it~"

Mitobe was chuckling silently in the back.

"God, I _really_ hate you!" Aomine grumbled. "Kuroko just said he'd… help me out as long as I didn't give up, so… that's how it is."

Kuroko could tell by the look on Kiyoshi's face that he wanted to hear the full story later and nodded. Humming a little, Kiyoshi smiled at Aomine.

"Well, I'm glad to see that your fighting spirit is back at any rate. Really glad…"

Because his tone sounded a little sad, Aomine looked at him questioningly, but Kiyoshi clapped his hands together and turned to the guests.

"I guess you two got kicked out by Riko," he said, and the two men looked ashamed. With a sigh, Aomine headed to the kitchen. "I wonder what you did this time, huh. Not that I'm surprised. She's been on edge ever since Hyuuga…well, it's fine. I brought all my extra futons along. And then, Kuroko… Are you going to stay over as well?"

"No. Kise-kun said that he would find us an apartment by the end of the day, so he'll be picking me up."

"Ahh, that's too bad. Maybe next time, then, yeah?" Kiyoshi said. "Oh, by the way, I never really properly introduced these two. That's Koganei Shinji, and the other's Mitobe Rinnosuke. Oh, don't take it personally when Mitobe doesn't answer you," Kiyoshi added. "He's a mute."

"Ah, it's good to meet you…" Kuroko said.

Mutes had it hard in that day and age. In a world where much of technology relied on voice commands, like the new robot Chiri, mutes were often left behind.

"Mitobe says nice to meet you," Koganei supplied. Mitobe nodded.

"Well," Kiyoshi said, but whatever came next was cut off by a loud screech from the wall. Only slightly fazed, Kuroko blinked at the wall, which was oscillating between red and white.

"We are sorry for interrupting your evening," said a smooth female voice, "however, we would like to alert the community that there is a criminal on the run in this area. The confirmed suspect is Yajuu Erin, a male of 26 years of age with dark brown hair and eyes. He is five feet, nine inches tall and was last captured in this surveillance photo just outside of Teikou hospital."

The wall shimmered before producing a picture of the described man.

"The crime was attempted murder on Akashi Seijuuro estimated at around three forty-two two mornings ago. The assault was a single knife-stab to the stomach, which was fortunately not terribly deep. Akashi-sama, however, seemed to have suffered a concussion and was unable to get himself help. Unfortunately, the victim was not found until today, fifteen minutes ago, and is in critical condition due to blood loss. We ask that all of Teikou Hospital remain inside while we go into lockdown. During this time, all doors and windows will be automatically locked, and no one except for authorized personnel will be able to enter. In the event that Yajuu Erin is caught on surveillance or is scanned with a retina scanner nearby, we will immediately alert you and send out the Drones. Please stay calm if this happens. Repeating; we are sorry for interrupting your evening…"

Kiyoshi was wearing a great frown on his face as the voice repeated its message.

"Kiyoshi-san…?"

"Ah, sorry," he said, a smile snapping back into place. "I just don't like how they're able to intrude on people's lives like that. I mean, I know it's important for safety and all, but, they can basically feed you any type of information whether false or true at any time of day, and you don't have any say in it. It just seems a little too much intrusion. And too much power in the government."

Kuroko nodded slowly. "I can see where you're coming from. It would be a little inconvenient at times, I can imagine."

"Not only inconvenient; like I said, an intrusion," Kiyoshi said. "Especially those new retina scanners. They only just started putting them on major buildings, but the idea of them being able to scan your eyes and track you like that is… Well, that's enough from me. Aomine! Is there any food!"

"Shut up, I'm making it!" Aomine crabbed. "Although I might've burned the water…"

"What?!" Koganei cried. He leaped to his feet and bounded into the kitchen where he let out a wail of _how can you burn WATER?!_ and then _wait, stop, knives are dangerous!_ Kuroko chuckled.

"So," Kiyoshi said, bringing Kuroko's attention back. "How _did_ you manage to change Aomine in such a short amount of time. I've been here for two days and have been trying, and this morning, Aomine left in a great huff-puff-puff because I mentioned walking to him. And then he comes back with you, and he's like a happy puppy! How'd that happen?"

Kuroko hesitated, shooting a glance into the kitchen.

"Ah, don't worry, I'll keep it a secret." Kiyoshi winked. Behind him, Mitobe was making motions, but without Koganei the translator, Kuroko had no idea what the mute was saying. So he spilled the beans, just about everything he could remember from the time he met Aomine to the roof, to how he saw him on the mini-court, to their promise. And then, as soon as Aomine came back in, Kiyoshi beckoned him over.

"What do you want now?"

Kiyoshi patted him on the back and held a hand to his eyes.

"That—you two are so—wonderful youths—that fist bump at the end, that was absolutely—!"

"K-Kiyoshi-san!"

Mitobe looked greatly apologetic while Aomine turned bright red and crabbed at Kuroko about how he'd never trust him again or follow through with his embarrassing antics, but they all knew that wasn't true. All throughout his nagging, Aomine had the hints of a smile on his face.

* * *

"How's Satsuki's work going?" Aomine casually asked as they sat down to eat. The meal was made by Koganei, who'd shoved Aomine out of the kitchen, and the silent Mitobe, and Kuroko had to say that it was the best meal he'd had in a year.

"Satsuki?" Kuroko questioned.

"Momoi Satsuki, our intelligence gatherer, analyzer, scout, professional hacker…" Kiyoshi supplied.

"…hacker?"

"That's right," Koganei said proudly. "She's the best in Japan! Super smart, beautiful, sexy, quick—Satsuki Momoi, the daring hacker! At only seven years of age, she was able to write her first hacking code; six years later, she hacked and brought to its knees a major scamming company. She's globally recognized under a pseudo name at age nineteen!"

"Wow…"

"She also happens to be a certain Aomine Daiki's love interest~"

"_Childhood friend_," Aomine said viciously.

"Oh? How did you two meet, Aomine-san?"

Aomine suddenly looked uncomfortable. Kiyoshi put a hand on Kuroko's shoulder and nodded to the food. "You should eat. It's good."

"Ah, right…"

Feeling like he'd just treaded on taboo grounds, Kuroko immediately dug back into his food, hoping he hadn't caused too much damage. Aomine had turned to poking at his food while Mitobe gave him worried glances.

"Well," Aomine sighed. "I guess you'll find out sooner or later, and I'd rather you hear it from me, Kuroko, so… My dad… is a bit of a womanizer, and after my mom got hospitalized the first time when I was six, he started bringing his women home."

Kuroko suddenly felt very sorry for having asked how Aomine met Momoi. So this is what Aomine meant when he said _that jackass of a father._

"And… one of them was Satsuki's mom. She's as pretty as Satsuki, big boobs, nice figure…" Kiyoshi coughed. "But unlike Satsuki, she was pretty disloyal. She'd say she was visiting her mother and take Satsuki along with her, but all she was doing was using her as a prop to cover her infidelity. And, that's how Satsuki and I met. My dad stuck us into a hotel room together and then went off with her mom, so we became friends. Anyways," Aomine said, stabbing a piece of meat a little more venomously than usual, "that's my story. Moving on, Kiyoshi-san, how's she doing?"

Kuroko, thankful that Aomine left him no space to comment, listened intently to Kiyoshi, who was trying to speak around a mouthful of carrots.

"She aout oo ome ack—"

"Hey, hey, swallow!"

Kiyoshi gulped and choked. "Sorry. I was saying, she's about to come back from her trip to the States. We haven't heard from her for a while, since they're monitoring everything like crazy now—ever since the Crisis of 2085, you know."

Kuroko nodded. The Crisis of 2085 had been a coordinated ring of terror attacks across the USA in every state. Through communications and precise timing, terrorists had detonated almost a hundred bombs at the same time, causing mass destruction and hysteria. Ever since the incident, the US government had thrown aside all notions of privacy to elevate security and to prevent such an attack from ever repeating itself. A great controversy arose, of course, and there was major strife, protests, and civil revolts within the country.

The incident in the US had also terrorized countries around the world, Japan being one of them. Kuroko knew that there were some theories that the tremor running through the Teikou RailLines had actually been a partially failed attempt at a terrorist attack by the same group that shook America. And there were still others that claimed it was an attack staged by the Japanese government itself so that it would have reason to enforce major surveillance and censoring acts later.

"Momoi said she should be back by the end of the week, but… if you've been keeping up with world news, there's been a report of another planned terrorist attack that was leaked on the CloudLines, so the US government is thinking about shutting down everything. They were planning on handling it quietly, but since CloudLines posted it, everything's been running to chaos…" Kiyoshi said.

CloudLines was a project kicked off by a group of high school students who despised the way the US government was keeping watch on all actions on the Internet. To try to avoid surveillance and get out real news (which had also been curtailed by the government as they tried to keep people from figuring out what and when the government was watching amongst other things), the high school students developed a removable protective covering that worked like a computer. Invisible to the eye and easily fitted and applied to most devices, even to the front of a credit card, they were the ultimate method of connecting to CloudLines without being caught by a surveillance camera. They couldn't connect to the Internet, but they were linked directly to CloudLines' headquarters, which broadcasted signals from an ever-changing source. So far, though the government had sent the best teams on the high-schoolers' tracks, they'd had no luck in finding them.

What started out as a small group evolved into a massive, undetectable organization, extending even into the government itself. Updates from within the government were slow, however; the few officials who dared to leak information had to carefully plan how to send that information to CloudLines' headquarters. While people could upload information on the forum board, the only trusted data came from under the main forum titled "CloudLines."

Aomine frowned. "Will she be alright? Is she going to stay there longer, then?"

"Hopefully not," Kiyoshi said. "The CloudLines in America offered to take her back to Japan in a private jet before the US realizes what she is really up to."

"CloudLines? She knows CloudLines?" Kuroko asked, surprised. It was extremely difficult, from what he'd heard, to get in touch with CloudLines directly if you weren't sharing information.

"Well, yeah," Kiyoshi said, looking a little bashful. "We all do. I'm part of Cloudlines."

Kuroko dropped his spoon on the floor and bent down to retrieve it while Kiyoshi continued to talk.

"So are Koganei and Mitobe."

Kuroko's eyebrows shot up his forehead in an uncharacteristic display of surprise.

"What?"

"CloudLines isn't just America anymore; it's extended globally," Kiyoshi said, waving his fork in the air. "It's major. Governments everywhere are scrambling to hide their deepest secrets now, and it's why there's been such a spike in privacy issues everywhere. You know how the Chinese communist government is finally beginning to crumble in its control of information? That's CloudLines' work. Everyone in China knows about Tiananmen Square now. China has some of the best hackers, programmers, what-say-you, and now, there's no hiding anything anymore. Everything that's ever happened is getting out into the open."

"Just because of CloudLines…?" Kuroko murmured. "That's amazing."

"It's the people who're amazing. Without them, CloudLines would be nothing. After all, a forum can't gather information on its own. Unless it's a robot," Kiyoshi added as an afterthought. "But robots can only do so much. Pretty cool, isn't it?" he said, clapping Aomine on the back, who looked just as stunned as Kuroko. "I bet Momoi never told you any of this."

"She didn't," Aomine muttered.

"Don't worry your head over it," Kiyoshi said reassuringly. "She probably didn't want you to get involved for a reason. Being in CloudLines is pretty dangerous stuff, you know. Identities are kept hush-hush in case you get hacked. No one knows who else is part of CloudLines unless you joined as a group—like we did," Kiyoshi said, nodding to Koganei and Mitobe. "And you can't get a position in the group unless you hack your way in and get acknowledged by the original members like Momoi did, or if you get invited. But even then, you don't know the names of the people who invited you. You can't really even talk about it openly in case your rooms are bugged."

"Wha—" Aomine started. "_Are_ these rooms bugged?"

"Not anymore," Kiyoshi said, grinning. "While you were out, I got Izuki—another person on our team who's in CloudLines—to search every nook and cranny. He's got some crazy eyes for these things; hasn't ever been a thing he couldn't find. There wasn't much, though—just a microphone in every room."

"_Just_ a microphone in every room?! I should sue them…"

Kiyoshi laughed. "When the next cleaning robot comes in, though, I have to put them back. They do scans of the rooms every time they come, save them, then superimpose them after each visit. If there's something missing that's been in the scans every other time the robots have been in here, it gets reported. It's a pain when you have things like potted plants and have to throw them out," Kiyoshi said. "Luckily, those little things come in on a regular schedule."

"…I never knew these things."

"Never knew a lot of things! You learn something every day," Kiyoshi said, grinning. "Like, for instance, the other day, Koganei was telling me about how the kidney is actually where the knee is!"

"I was _joking!_"

Meanwhile, Kuroko's FlareX was vibrating in his pocket. He took the square composed of four layers of glass out and shook it. Kise was calling.

"Oh? You have to go?"

"Thank you for having me," Kuroko said, bowing. "Kise-kun is calling. I think he's here to pick me up."

"Ah, well—you can always stay if you'd like!"

Kuroko shook his head and smiled. "I've intruded long enough. Actually, if I could ask for one more thing…"

Using his FlareX, he snapped another picture of Aomine with Kiyoshi, Koganei, and Mitobe all at the table. Aomine looked miffed. Kuroko smiled.

"Thank you for your hospitality. I'll see you tomorrow, Aomine."

"Y-You don't have to…"

"I will. Goodbye."

Kise was waiting for him at the entrance of the hospital with two other familiar faces in tow. Takao waved at him cheerily; Midorima scoffed and turned away.

"Kurokocchi, how was your day? How's Ao-something doing?"

Kuroko smiled. "He's doing well."

"I told you," Kise said, rubbing Kuroko's head. "Anyways, we found an apartment. Or, I did, and Takaocchi and Midorimacchi decided to rent the space right next-door. It'll be great!"

Midorima was muttering something like _I didn't agree to this!_ but Kise only laughed.

"By the way, if you're wondering," Kise added, pointing to the bar of soap in Midorima's hand. "He claims that's his lucky item, but I think he's just a clean freak."

"I'm not!" Midorima said. "It really is my lucky item. Trivialities aside, let's hurry up and get out of here," he said impatiently, adjusting his glasses. "We're not supposed to be out, anyways. That alert earlier…"

"The one about who was it… Yajuu or something?" Takao said. "Chill out, Shin-chan. The odds that we'll actually run into him are close to—"

"H-Hey, isn't that person over there…"

Takao choked on his words and looked at Kise, who was pointing to a shadow lurking around the corner.

"Um… Oh, no… Quick, back into the building?" Takao ran up to the door, pulling on it, but it wouldn't open. "What?!"

"The hospital's on lockdown," Kuroko remembered. "We can't get back inside…"

"So why aren't the police coming down over here?" Takao said.

"Foliage is too thick," Midorima murmured, looking up at the dense canopy. "They must not be maintaining this place well. The surveillance camera seems to be above those trees."

By this time, the shadow had detached itself from the wall of the hospital and was walking towards them. Kuroko could see something shining at its fingertips—like a set of knives? Kuroko didn't want to think too much about it; he was already busy trying to get Kise to back away.

"What do we do?" Kise stammered. "Oh, crap, I didn't want to die this way! Why didn't he get registered in the retina scanners?"

"The trees—and his shades," Takao said. "Look at him, he's wearing shades. The sneaky bastard!"

"Should we run?" Midorima said, licking his lips and gripping his soap tightly, as if that would do anything. Beside him, Kuroko twitched.

"Please wait here. And I'll be taking this, if you don't mind."

"Huh?"

Midorima looked down feeling the lack of something very potently. His hands were empty, and beside him, where Kuroko once stood, was only empty space.

"Where did my soap go…"

"Where'd Kurokocchi go?" Kise cried.

Meanwhile, Kuroko was miraculously creeping undetected along the wall until he was just behind the man approaching the group. Their guess had been right; now close up, Kuroko could see that the face matched that in the alert. And knives were in his hands. And they looked too pointy for comfort. He needed to be stopped before he hurt someone with those.

So, with a bland a face as ever, Kuroko simply stepped up as close as he could get to Yajuu Erin (which close enough so that his nose was five inches behind the man's back), bent down, and slid the soap on the ground so that it was directly where the man's foot would land next. Then, he quietly slipped away.

Just as planned, Yajuu Erin stepped directly onto the soap, flipped into the air with his knives flying every which way, and landed heavily on his back. Kuroko only smiled when he heard the back of the man's head crack against the grassy ground. From a distance, he could hear the stunned silence and then the roar of admiration from Kise.

"Whoo! You go, Kurokocchi! Kick that guy's ass!"

Yajuu was struggling to sit up and was already reaching for his knives.

"Ah, ah, that won't do. Knives are dangerous, don't you know?"

It was a boyish voice that spoke, and it was a tall, tall shadow that loomed over both Kuroko and Yajuu Erin. Like a hawk's talons grabbing a mouse, except many times slower, an enormous hand entered Kuroko's line of vision and plucked Yajuu from the ground by the arm.

"That hurts, you know," the voice said when Yajuu stuck the knife into the hand holding him. "Ouch."

Kuroko's eyes traveled from the hand, up the arm, to the shoulder, until he saw a pair of very purple eyes set above a down-turned mouth on a face framed with long, purple hair that hung almost a foot above the top of Kuroko's head.

"Ah, ah," the giant said. He shook Yajuu up and down like a doll until all the metal knives went flying from his hands. "That's better. Now, then."

The giant walked over to a dip in the wall where a retina scanner lay and moved as if to pull the shades off Yajuu's face, but there came a great shout from behind. The police force had arrived. Looking bored with the situation already, the giant dropped Yajuu in an ungraceful heap before yawning.

Kise ran up to Kuroko, Takao and Midorima hot on his heels.

"Kurokocchi! Are you okay?" Kise cried, checking Kuroko all over. Once the inspection was done, he turned to the giant, craning his head to meet the purple-eyed man's gaze.

"And who—who're you?" he said a little timidly.

"Me?" the giant said languidly. "I'm Murasakibara Atsushi."

Murasakibara Atsushi pulled out a package as violet as his hair and popped it open with hardly any effort at all. He poured the contents—chips—into an enormous hand and brought it to his mouth. And then, with his mouth full and with crumbs flying all over Kise's face, he said finally:

"Nice to meet you."

* * *

_Hm, seems like I'll be changing the plot quite a bit. I've been thinking about this story, and suddenly came up with a few ideas I want to try exploring. The basis of where the story will go from here has been set! If CloudLines was confusing to understand, let me know, and I'll be happy to explain; it's pretty vital. _

_Murasakibara makes his entrance! And, finally, Midorima's lucky items come in useful!_

_A glimpse: Next chapter, Kuroko and Aomine will come face to face (in a manner of speaking) with Akashi, and Murasakibara will be entering the fray. Then, after that will probably be a time skip, and then Kagami Taiga, along with Himuro Tatsuya and Hyuuga Junpei, will make his long-awaited (?!) entrance! _

_(OH MY GOD TO THE PERSON WHO POINTED OUT I'D WRITTEN HYUUGA TEPPEI INSTEAD OF JUNPEI LAKDJIOWHEG at least I got the ending syllable right TAT)_

_I'm about to give up on chapter titles. If someone is willing to make up titles for the previous three chapters and this one, I would be so grateful TAT. For now, I'll be imitating Tadatoshi Fujimaki sensei and taking a line of dialogue from each chapter to use as the chapter title._

_Thanks to everyone supporting this story! Have a nice day :)_


	5. Type a command

Not that Kuroko was surprised, but Kise jumped right to calling Murasakibara 'Murasakibaracchi.' Speaking of which, he wondered what Takao and Midorima had done to earn the –cchi suffix at the ends of their names; he hated to admit it, but he was a bit jealous. It'd taken Kise almost two months to start calling him by the elongated nickname.

"…so you're the guy that nurse was talking about! The one who got all pumped up with steroids and stuff—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Kise found his face being acquainted with the ground and his mouth full of grass.

"Jeez, what was that for, Kurokocchi?"

Kuroko gave him a disapproving look before turning to Murasakibara and bowing.

"Thank you for your help."

"Ah, no problem," Murasakibara said casually as if Kise hadn't said anything about his past. Or maybe he didn't care. Kuroko couldn't tell; not yet. "It wasn't out of my way or anything."

"Picking up a murderer from the ground and waving him around wasn't out of your way?" Takao said incredulously.

"I came to the hospital for a check up on my artificial eye and blood composition," Murasakibara said. "I couldn't get in, so I just wandered around until I found you guys. And I didn't like that guy with the knives, so I dealt with him."

"You sure did," Takao muttered.

"Didn't you get the message to not come near the hospital?" Midorima asked, frowning. "It was broadcasted in every pod and building within a mile of the hospital. We got it, too, and the only reason why we came was because of this fool," he said, shooting Kise a look, "insisting we pick up this fo—Kuroko," Midorima corrected himself, unable to call the person who just saved him a fool.

"Nah, I disabled that feature in my pod," Murasakibara said.

"You did what?"

"Disabled it," Murasakibara repeated, shrugging.

"That should be impossible," Midorima spluttered. "It's built in by the manufacturers and doesn't have a switch to turn it off."

Murasakibara shrugged again. "You know that jailbreak that happened about a month ago, right? Well, the alert was going off every two seconds, so I got annoyed and took it out."

Takao blinked. "You can do that?"

Murasakibara nodded. "Yeah. You just have to look at the pod a little bit and then maybe take it apart, and then it's easy to find the antennas that pick up the alert signals. So you just wrench them out. And then you put the pod back together again."

"Wow, that's pretty cool, Murasakibaracchi!" Kise said. "You must be pretty smart, huh? Are you in college?"

"High school drop-out," Murasakibara said. "I wasn't learning anything useful, so I figured, why bother?"

"Oh…"

"Anyways, it was nice meeting all of you," Murasakibara said. "I want to go and get my checkups done."

"W-Wait, let's at least exchange FlareIDs…"

After doing so, the giant bade them goodbye and stooped to enter the hospital. Yajuu Erin was long gone, having been taken away by the Drones and the police squad.

"How did the police squad get here so quickly anyways?" Takao said as they took the elevator to the parking lot.

"What?"

"Don't you think it's kind of weird? I mean, the surveillance camera was covered up by the trees; the guy had shades on so he wasn't picked up by the retina scanner. There was no way that the police would know the guy's location, so how'd they come running to the rescue?"

"Just be grateful, Takao," Midorima sighed. "Maybe they heard the commotion or were on patrol nearby. Anyway, we're here, let's go. Are we all going on the same pod again?"

"Four to one pod," Kise said, grinning. "And the more, the merrier. C'mon, let's go! Dinner's on you two, though, and Kurokocchi and I get to sleep over."

"What—"

"Alright!" Takao cheered. Midorima, looking very miffed that all his protests were being brushed off, huffed and climbed into the pod.

"That was pretty scary though, don't you think?" Kise said, putting his arms behind his head. "But Kurokocchi was so cool! You were like something out of the movies! You just disappeared and then reappeared right behind that guy and knocked him out. KO!"

"I didn't do anything," Kuroko said, amused. "I only put the soap under his feet. He knocked himself out."

"Nah, that in itself is pretty amazing. You're really brave, you know that?"

"Thank you."

"Oh, looks like we're here," Kise said, pointing up at a glass building with balconies hanging off from every floor. "That's our new apartment!"

"So close?"

"Well, you said you were gonna help out that Ao-kid of yours, so I figured you wouldn't want to have to speed around all the time to get to the hospital. Plus, it's a nice view, and not that expensive!"

"Thank you…" Kuroko said, touched by Kise's consideration. The pod dropped them off at the balcony belonging to Kise and Kuroko before zooming off to the adjacent parking lot. Kise popped his eyes open wide, let the retina scanner verify his identity, and then they were all inside the sleek, bare apartment.

"Not that expensive, huh," Kuroko said quietly. The place was enormous; there was no way it didn't cost loads of money to rent out. There were two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a living space, a small dining room, a small working space, and a walk-in closet, making it essentially a compact house. Mirrors hung decoratively on the walls; a mobile art piece hovered just below the ceiling; the stove, sink, and refrigerator all looked new and expensive. Kuroko shook his head.

"Like it?" Kise said, smiling encouragingly. Kuroko could not lie; it was a nice flat. "Then let's go see Takaocchi and Midorimacchi's and have dinner and then pop into bed. I'm beat! Today was really fun, though."

Chatting avidly, Kise and Takao went ahead, leaving Kuroko walking awkwardly with Midorima, who seemed disinclined to conversing. So, Kuroko just remained silent.

"You know, you really have no presence," Midorima said suddenly.

"I'm sorry?"

Midorima elaborated. "If I lose track of you for one second, I think I could just forget about you completely."

Kuroko chuckled. "I get that a lot."

"You look weak, and you've got no charisma, but I'll acknowledge you," Midorima said, meeting Kuroko's eyes. "You've got guts."

"…Thank you."

Midorima huffed. "It's me who should be thanking you. Hey—Takao! What do you think you're doing?"

Midorima hurried over to Takao, who seemed to be prodding something in the corner of the retina scanner. Smiling, Kuroko brought out his FlareX and snapped another picture. He didn't know why he had such a sudden penchant for capturing memories; he thought that maybe it was because it was the first time he'd been surrounded by so many people.

Midorima was right; Kuroko had little to no presence at all. Before his accident, he'd been what is called a 'loner.' Not in a bad way; people didn't ostracize him on purpose. But because he was so easily forgotten, they did just that—forget him. Of course, when he was remembered, they hastily tried to include him, but they never grew close. It was like this ever since elementary school, minus two years during which he had a best friend called Ogiwara Shigehiro.

But ever since Ogiwara left, Kuroko had been alone.

"Hey, Kurokocchi! Come on, what're you hanging around for?" Kise called. Kuroko smiled. Alone didn't describe him anymore. Not since he'd met everyone. He jogged forward, catching the door just before it closed.

They shared a dinner made by Takao and served by Midorima, who was forced to wear a frog-print apron by Takao, and then pulled out all the extra blankets they could find and laid them out on the floor, much like how they did on the first night they'd slept together. After nearly an hour of chatting (mainly Takao and Kise), Midorima crabbed at them that he needed sleep, so they quieted down. Kuroko smiled and waited until he heard their soft breathing that signaled sleep before pulling out his FlareX one last time before he retired for the night.

That night he had two very different dreams.

The first he knew was at around two in the morning. He couldn't move his dream-body at will again, but the body turned its face so that he could catch sight of a digital clock in the corner. The person seemed to be making a post-midnight snack—a simple sandwich that was devoured in one gulp. Then, the lights turned off; Kuroko got the feeling he was moving upstairs, and then black was all he saw for the next few minutes.

The dream shifted. Now he was still in the dark, but by the way the moonlight snuck into the room, he could tell that the place was very familiar—in fact, it almost looked like his new apartment. There was the mirror at the front he'd seen that afternoon. Now his dream body was travelling through the hallway leading to the bathrooms. A light turned on; he squinted. Then, he was looking at a toilet, and suddenly he knew what was coming next. Luckily for him, his dream body yawned and then closed its eyes, dozing off while it took a leak. The lights flickered off again, and the body was moving back to where it came, and all of a sudden, Kuroko got a very odd feeling, because he was staring down at a sleeping boy who looked very much like himself.

With a jolt, he woke. Kise beside him mumbled and pulled the covers over his head. Kuroko could hear the toilet filling up with water.

"Um… Kise-kun, are you awake?"

"…..mmn…"

"Did you just use the restroom?"

"….mmnf…"

"Did you wash your hands?"

"…nomf…"

"…Okay."

Gulping, Kuroko flung himself back into the blankets, not caring that Midorima gave out an irritated grunt beside him. It was a coincidence, he decided, that he'd had a dream about going to the bathroom just when Kise was going to the bathroom. And seeing himself—that was also a coincidence. A very, very odd coincidence, but a coincidence nonetheless.

Kuroko rolled over and quickly forced himself to fall asleep.

* * *

When Kuroko woke up, he'd remembered nothing out of the ordinary from the night before. Takao was making breakfast for them, with a crabby, much-embarrassed Midorima dressed in a frog-print apron on standby. Kise pounded on the table impatiently; Kuroko moved to join him.

Still, that one dream he'd had about the boy with mismatched eyes cart wheeled in his head. There was something so potent about the red-gold gaze, about the frustration, about the pain that Kuroko couldn't forget. So, as Midorima and Takao settled down to eat, Kuroko launched the question.

"What do I know about dreams?" Midorima repeated, frowning, as he cut up his bacon. "I don't know much about them."

"Just what you know is fine," Kuroko said. "Anything."

"Well…" Midorima said slowly. "Why are you asking me, anyways?"

"Takao-san mentioned you wanted to become a doctor, so I figured you'd be my best bet," Kuroko said. Midorima shot a dirty look at Takao, who gave him a grin.

"I'm not becoming a doctor," Midorima said stiffly.

"Huh?"

Midorima shifted. "My parents won't let me."

Kuroko tilted his head in confusion. "But… it's you who wants to be a doctor, right?"

Midorima shrugged as if it didn't mean much to him. "Back to the topic, I only know one thing about dreams. And that is, every single face you ever dream is actually a face you've seen in reality."

"How does that work?" Kise asked around a mouth full of egg. "Like, does your brain say, oh I liked that person's face, let's dream about them?"

"No," Midorima sighed. He put down his fork. "Your brain just pulls them up at random."

"Is that 100% certain?" Kuroko said. "Is it possible to dream a face you've never seen?"

"I'm not an expert, but I would say no," Midorima said. "Think about it. You've probably seen a thousand faces, whether you remember all of them or not. It would be extremely simple to claim to never having seen a certain face before only to have it end up being that you _have_ seen that face before, you've just forgotten it."

"I guess so," Kuroko said dubiously. But something in his mind spoke to him, telling him that he would definitely remember a face as unique as the one that held a pair of mismatched eyes. Shrugging, he decided not to think too deeply into it. Dreams were mysterious things.

* * *

The doorbell rang, but when Aomine went to open it, nobody was there. He looked left. He looked right. He looked straight ahead.

"Good afternoon, Aomine-kun," a voice greeted.

"Yaagh! Sheesh, Kuroko, appear normally for once, can't you?" Aomine grumbled, stepping aside to let Kuroko in.

"That was normal," Kuroko replied, a bit of a pout in his voice. "Are you going down?"

"Ah, yeah… but hey, check this out," Aomine said. "Walk normally. I mean, like fast. Power walk."

"Huh?"

"Walk fast!"

"O-Okay…" Kuroko said, obliging. He had no idea what was going on but—

He blinked. Aomine was keeping up right next to him.

"Did you see that?" Aomine said excitedly when Kuroko jerked to a stop. "Kiyoshi-san was watching me move around the kitchen, and he gave me a few tips as to how to shift my weight on my feet to walk better—and it worked!"

"That's great, Aomine-kun!" Kuroko said, smiling.

"Well, I should be thanking you," Aomine said gruffly. "I'd have given up right now if it hadn't been for you…"

"Then I'm glad I could have helped," Kuroko said. "Where's Kiyoshi-san?"

"He had to go to work in the main hospital building," Aomine said. "He said he'd see if Satsuki's said anything since yesterday for me…"

"You seem to care about her a lot."

Aomine turned pink around the ears. "N-Not really. She's just been gone for a while, so I'm just…"

"Missing her?"

"No! Well, yes, kind of… ah, jeez, let's just get going."

Kuroko was glad to see the old patient-as-a-rock trainer waiting for Aomine at the rehab room. Aomine introduced Kuroko, said he'd be staying, and then began his practices. The therapist was delighted to see so much progress and offered to buy Aomine red bean paste mochi for their next session.

Kuroko, a man of his word, stayed the entire time, only slipping out once to get Aomine a bottle of water. The rest of the time, he surfed the net on his FlareX or called out encouraging, though sometimes goading, remarks to spur Aomine on. Afterwards, Aomine came to him on crutches, wiping his brow and jerked his chin at the door.

"Wanna come with? I'm gonna go check out that guy who came in yesterday."

"That… guy?"

"That son of the Akashi Robotics! Aren't you curious to see what a such a high and mighty guy like that looks like after getting the crap beaten out of him?" Aomine said.

"N…Not really…"

Aomine sighed and shook his head. "Whatever, come on. At least pretend to be a little curious. Don't you want to see how the guy's doing after almost bleeding to death?"

"Aomine-kun, that's quite morbid of you."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Aomine laughed. "I just want to do something new. After spending a year in this place, hobbling around like a maimed person without anything to do gets old. Come on."

Kuroko found himself almost having trouble keeping up with Aomine, whose spirits seemed to have lifted with the coming of his improved walking ability. It was also the first time Kuroko had seen him smile so much. When they neared the private patient rooms, Aomine slowed down and beckoned Kuroko to slide down the hall surreptitiously until they reached a door with the label 'Akashi Seijuuro' stuck onto it.

"Huh," Aomine said, peering through the small window. "Looking at him now, he just seems like a twig."

"Aomine-kun, that's not nice," Kuroko chided, feeling like a twig himself next to the tan-skinned boy beside him. He got onto his tiptoes, but even then, he was barely able to catch a glance through the square piece of glass.

Akashi Seijuuro seemed to be a boy about their age, 18. His red hair lay softly against his paper-white face; an unhealthy contrast. His body up to his chin was covered by a white sheet. Something familiar rang about the boy, but Kuroko couldn't place his finger on exactly what it was. It was like having a word on the tip of your tongue; it just wouldn't click. He pushed himself up further on his tiptoes, feeling the top of his head digging into Aomine's chin—

"Oh? Kuroko, Aomine, what're you guys doing here?"

Kuroko and Aomine turned their heads simultaneously to see Koganei and Mitobe strolling down the hallway. They looked oddly official with button-downs and slacks; Mitobe was even carrying a lab coat. Greeting them politely, Kuroko echoed their question back at them.

"Just taking a break at work," Koganei explained, holding up a bag of food. "Kiyoshi and Izuki—ah, you haven't met Izuki yet, have you?"

"No."

"He's part of the team. As I was saying, Kiyoshi and Izuki were being kind of crabby because Hyuuga—ah, I guess you don't know Hyuuga either?"

"No."

"He…" Koganei hesitated. "Is he part of the team? I don't know anymore. Anyways, like I was saying, those two were being kind of crabby because Hyuuga's been ignoring us for the past week, so Mitobe and I hopped out of the room for a second. So, your turn. What's up?"

"Aomine wanted to see what a half-dead person looked like, so we came out."

"Don't be so frank about it, Kuroko!"

"Weird kid," Koganei said, laughing. Mitobe made a gesture.

"Well, if you haven't got anything else to do," Koganei started translating, "Mitobe wants to ask you if you'd like to come up and take a look around our lab."

"Is that allowed?" Aomine said, perking up. "Really?"

"Sure it's allowed," Koganei said, grinning. "We actually usually don't invite people up there since we do some super special secret work sometimes, but Kiyoshi seems to trust you two just fine, so I guess it should be okay. Besides, Izuki's been itching to meet at least one person whose eyes have been replaced. I warn you, though, Izuki makes some pretty bad puns… what was the one he said yesterday, Mitobe?"

Mitobe shook his head, holding out a hand.

"Ahh, right. 'Do you have 11 protons? Because you're sodium fine.'"

Koganei glanced at Kuroko and Aomine, both of whom looked extremely unaffected. Sighing, he shrugged.

"Guess they didn't get it."

Kuroko blinked, then put his fist in his hand. "Ah, I get it. Was I supposed to laugh?"

"Nah, don't bother," Koganei said, shaking his head. "Izuki's used to nobody laughing at his puns. If you feel like hitting him because you feel like a particular pun was stupid, feel free. Hyuuga used to do that all the time… Kinda miss Hyuuga," Koganei said, chewing on his lip. Then he shrugged. "Well, what's gone is gone. You want to come?"

"Sure!" Aomine said eagerly.

Koganei led them up to the twenty ninth floor, the floor just below the rooftop. The elevator opened up to a wide hallway, on one side of which was the greenhouse above which Kuroko had met Aomine, the other side of which was a blank stretch of wall with two black doors. Mitobe made a gesture towards a small code-box next to one door, indicating that they should look away. After punching in five numbers, Mitobe opened the door and let the others in first.

"Ah, welcome back, you two!" a voice they recognized as Kiyoshi's greeted.

"You two calm down? I brought guests," Koganei responded.

Kiyoshi wheeled himself out from behind a corner to see, a wide grin spreading on his face when he saw the familiar faces.

"That's great! I was just thinking about inviting them myself. It does get lonely with only old grandpas around."

"Who're you calling old?"

A new person stepped out into the open, peering curiously at the two faces he didn't recognize. He had black hair and sharp grey eyes that reminded Kuroko of a hawk.

"Who're they?"

"Kuroko Tetsuya and Aomine Daiki," Koganei supplied while holding up his bag. "And your drinks and snacks. Funny story, though, when I got to the machine, it was almost empty as if someone had went and bought everything on the shelves… so I could only get you what was left… Don't cry over it."

"Don't be so corny," Izuki said as he accepted a bag of corn chips. He looked eagerly up at Kuroko and Aomine, but they only blinked at him as if saying _was that actually a pun?_ Dejected, he popped open the bag and poured the contents into his mouth like a famished monkey.

"Kinda dry," he commented blandly. "Anyways, nice to meet you two. I take it that the tall, dark-skinned, surly-looking boy is Kiyoshi's new roommate, and the twig-like one is Kuroko? I'm Izuki Shun. Aomine when I say it's nice to meet you."

Aomine's face twisted into a look that seemed to say _I have absolutely no clue what you just did to my name but I feel like strangling you already and we haven't even known each other for two minutes._

Izuki sighed while Koganei tried to explain. "Get it? Aomine? Kinda sounds like 'I'll mean it…' no… okay…"

Kuroko let out a stifled laugh, which seemed to make Izuki brighten up considerably.

"Anyways, don't just wait at the door. Come in."

Obliging, Kuroko and Aomine went deeper into the room. Everything was quite dark; the room was illuminated by only a few dim lamps in the corners and several glass computer screens strewn out on desks. A quiet aquarium divided this room into two parts. Another black, almost invisible, door peeked out from behind a few blankets strung up from the ceiling. Kuroko and Aomine had to tip-toe carefully between small messes of gadgets on the floor.

"Sorry that it's messy," Izuki said. "We don't usually have visitors, so we just leave everything lying around. Of course, it's a pain—literally and figuratively—when you step on something, but you just have to be careful. Ah, watch the IReo, I just built that today."

Aomine lifted his crutches in time for a small toddling robot to cross his path. Kuroko stooped down and picked it up. He smiled; it was quite cute, reminding him of that obsessive cleaning robot he'd seen in an ancient movie—Wall-e, was it called? The small contraption chattered at him, pointing angrily at the ground, so with a chuckle, he set it down.

"You built it?" Aomine said, sounding half-impressed. "Today?"

"Yeah, I had some free time while the computer was doing some calculations," Izuki said. "So I picked some stuff up from the ground and built it. It doesn't really do anything except scold," he said, wincing as the robot bashed his leg snootily with a rolling pin it had produced from a pile of cooking utensils, "but it makes the place a little less lonely. Hey, now, why don't you go bother Kiyoshi for a change instead of biting the hand that created you?"

"Is this where you do most of your work?" Kuroko asked.

"Pretty much. While the rest of the hospital sort of mills around in the bottom floors, we get this top floor to ourselves. Nobody bothers us, so it kind of feels like we don't exist," Izuki said with a laugh. "But it's nice. We have a lab on the other side of the wall, and then a few bedrooms in case we get sleepy, and a kitchen—but nobody's been in that since the Great Mold."

"The… great mold?"

"With capital letters," Izuki said solemnly. "I'll just show you."

He led them around the aquarium and pointed in the general direction of a black counter-top.

"Oh, _nasty_."

Upon closer inspection, what was a black counter-top was actually a _white_ counter-top with black fuzz growing on top of it. Aomine put a hand out as if to stop the disgustingness from spreading.

"Exactly," Izuki said. "Nobody wants to deal with it, so we've let it… fester. So whenever you want to poison somebody… just drop by and scoop some mold off."

"Hey, Izuki?" Koganei called from behind the aquarium. He sounded panicked. "Izuki, I think we're getting a message from Momoi."

"Satsuki?"

"Momoi?" Izuki repeated, bolting into the other room. "You're sure?"

"Just a message in text," Koganei said. He was seated in front of the largest glass screens in the room, fingers flying furiously across a clear keyboard on which letters glowed. Mitobe, beside him, was also in a frenzy, pushing hair out of his face as he hunched closer to the screen.

"It's awfully coded," Koganei said, never once letting his fingers rest, "like Momoi was trying to protect it from hackers, and there's this awful noise it's making—just wait for it—"

A piercing screech ripped through the room, coming right from the speakers in the glass. The door behind the blankets burst open, and Kiyoshi came barreling through, looking manic with his hair pushed back in a mess with goggles and tongs in his hands.

"What's going on?"

"Momoi," Izuki said, and that word alone seemed to explain enough. Kiyoshi dropped his tools and gripped the back of Koganei's chair tightly as the brunette squinted his eyes at the block of text running along the screen.

"Be careful, it might have a worm in it," Kiyoshi warned.

"Mitobe said he's caught two already," Koganei said, without so much as glancing at the silent man pounding away on his own keyboard.

"What's going on?" Aomine said. "Why all the fuss over an email?"

"Anything coming out of the States is corrupted by little coding pockets floating around the Net," Izuki said quietly. "Often times, with the pockets are coding worms, which the government uses as spyware to hack any cameras or mics hooked up to the system receiving the message. It's extremely important that none of these worms worm their way into our place; we've got secrets here, as dramatic as it sounds, on which our lives depend… Where's Riko when you need her?"

"Out bugging Hyuuga," Kiyoshi said.

"Riko?"

"Someone who's got good coding skills," Izuki said.

The screen was beginning to flicker, blue lines running across it like water. Koganei gnashed his teeth together in frustration.

"Damn, whoever intercepted Momoi's message was really determined to make sure it didn't get anywhere," he ground out. "There are Hex Bugs everywhere, and a WatchDog, too… sorry guys, but whoever wrote this code now knows where we are."

"It's that bad?" Izuki said. His hand darted into his pocket, pulling out a FlareX. "I'll call Riko."

"Too late," Koganei said. "We need Hanamiya for something like this."

"Hanamiya's on vacation."

"I know."

"Can you handle this?"

"Just pull up another keyboard," Koganei said, jerking his head towards a drawer. Izuki was there in a flash, pulled up a chair, and seated himself next to Koganei. The computer let out another ear-bursting screech as the screen turned bright red.

"Crap!" Koganei yelped. "No, no, no!"

"W-What's going on?" Aomine said. "Why're all the screens in this room going bonkers?"

"Hacked," Kiyoshi said grimly. "And on a day like this when it's only us around… We can only hope Momoi's XWalls hold up."

Something began vibrating in Kuroko's pocket. When he reached into it, he found that someone was calling him on his FlareX, someone he hadn't expected to hear from.

_1 incoming call from: Murasakibara Atsushi._

"H-Hello?" Kuroko said, feeling very out of place answering a call during a time of obvious crisis.

"_Ah, is this… Karo-chin?"_

"Do you mean Kuroko?"

"_Ah, yeah, that."_

"Yes. Did you need something, Murasakibara-san?"

"_Not really. I just had an interesting dream, and you were in it, so I felt like calling you."_

"Is that so?" Kuroko said loudly over Koganei's shrieks of despair. Something was beginning to slide across the red screens in that room, like a black snake across grass. It looked insidious, and the sight of it made Kuroko uneasy. The entire room was blinking red as the glass monitors flickered; he half expected something to explode.

"_Yeah. You went to some room on the top floor of the hospital, and then after a while, a computer screen turned blue. I woke up then, and I was kind of curious, and I was already in the hospital, so I went up to the top floor—and guess what? The room exists. I'm standing right outside it."_

A horrible screech caused Kuroko to wince.

"You're outside it? Is it a black door?"

"_Mm. With a code box to the right. Are you inside? That would be pretty weird if you—"_

Murasakibara stopped talking because the door had just swung open, revealing a very hassled looking Kuroko Tetsuya who yanked Murasakibara inside.

"Wow," was all Murasakibara could say. In any other situation, Kuroko would have asked Murasakibara more about his dream, but now was not the time. Kiyoshi could only spare a backwards, worried glance at the person Kuroko had let in before redirecting his attention to Koganei's commands.

"What's going on here?" Murasakibara asked. "Getting hacked?"

"I'm afraid so," Kuroko said.

"Huh… interesting," Murasakibara said. He invited himself into the room despite Kuroko's weak protests, peering over Koganei's shoulder. Koganei didn't even notice the giant looming above him until two long, enormous arms reached over him and claimed the keyboard. With a yell, Koganei toppled out of his chair, and then started pulling at his hair, screaming _what is this guy doing here?!_

Murasakibara patted Koganei on the head comfortingly before settling himself into the chair. With dexterity Kuroko would never have imagined for someone so gigantic, Murasakibara's fingers skipped across the keyboard, typing in code after code.

"H-Hey, what's he doing?" Izuki said. "Who let him in?"

Murasakibara lifted a languid hand and brushed Izuki's hands off the adjacent keyboard, doing the same to Mitobe.

"Stop that, please," he drawled. "It's distracting."

The computer squealed again, but Murasakibara barely batted an eye. The black snake, which upon closer inspection was actually made up of innumerable lines of text, writhing across the red screens was beginning to flicker. Mouths open, they watched as it completely disappeared. Murasakibara frowned, pausing for a split second before typing something on the keyboard.

The room was suddenly void of light, save for a soft, white glow from the screens.

Izuki looked stunned; Koganei even more so.

"…What… did you do?"

Murasakibara shrugged and pushed a strand of purple hair out of his face. "It was annoying, so I dealt with it."

"No but…" Izuki said, struggling with words. "_How?_ Who are you? You just waltzed right in and fixed something that three of us couldn't handle!"

Murasakibara shrugged. He got up from the chair, looming far above Izuki and the rest.

"It was a message, right?" he said. "It's open, now. I got rid of the HexBugs and the WatchDog and that strange snake on the screen, but the message went through some corruption before it even left the States, I'm guessing. There's not much of it left."

Nodding slowly, Izuki sank into the vacated chair, pale in the face. Giving Murasakibara a wary look, Koganei and Kiyoshi watched over Izuki's shoulder as he opened up the message labeled _Momoi Satsuki._

_sdkgioieruBIG dwieur3844%%441111111011101111111111111111TROUBLEk fieiroro  
ldkjfioweioiguiONTO YO^Ul02022201110111010001010110101 press enter [[s:  
CAN'T LE$$AVE I'M dfjiweuroi00000000000000000zxxxxxxxxxxxxNO HELP xxxxxx%  
dlkjfwieoiieie00100GARCIAppppppp [esc: [esc: httppx E YES poooff type a command: WATCH OUT 888888888888888888888888888888888888 nolucknolucknoluck type a command:/_

"…what on earth?"

* * *

_Thanks for all the support! I really appreciate it. And sorry for not getting back to the reviewers; I've been in sort of a slump this past week._

_Until next time! Have a nice day :)_


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